The Rt. Hon. Sir John Major KG CH

Tag: Conservative Central Council

  • Mr Major’s Speech to Central Council in Bath – 15 March 1997

    Below is the text of Mr Major’s speech to Conservative Central Council, held in Bath on Saturday 15th March 1997.

    PRIME MINISTER:

    Today, I’m going to set out what I believe.

    And why you can only be sure with the Conservatives.

    We’ll win because our policies work. And Labour’s don’t.

    Because we say what we believe in. And Labour don’t.

    Because we’re proud of our record. And they’re trying to hide their past.

    That’s why Labour make such a performance of saying that they’ve changed.

    Mr Chairman, who were the leading lights of the Labour Party when the Blairs, the Cooks and the Browns joined it?

    I’ll tell you. The Kinnocks, the Benns, the Foots, the Healeys.

    Now they’re non-persons.

    They’re not talked of – except in private, where Mr Cook says Mr Foot is the best Prime Minister we never had.

    in public he supports Mr Blair – just – but in private he says something else.

    New Labour in a nutshell.

    But our real opponent is much more formidable than Labour.

    We’re fighting the argument that “it’s time for a change.”

    Economic change

    Time for a change?

    Odd, isn’t it – in 1979 Britain was near bankrupt, scorned, a great nation on the slide. Our country really did need change then.

    Why? Because in that harsh, unforgettable winter, Britain was governed by Labour.

    This spring, children born that winter will be voting for the first time.

    In their short lifetime, an old, decaying – some said dying – nation has been rejuvenated, restored, revived.

    Those young people won’t know it. Far too many others out there seem to be forgetting it.

    But Britain has changed – from being a European basket case to an international role model.

    People once talked of the British disease. Now they’re copying the British solution.

    The once sick man of Europe is setting the pace.

    So, when you hear siren voices wailing ‘It’s time for a change’ – fix them in the eyes and challenge this nonsense:

    ‘A change to what?’

    Is the nation moaning, out there “Low inflation. Who needs it? Let prices rip”?

    Are they frantic at the lowest basic rate of tax for sixty years? “I can’t bear it. Let’s put a penny on income tax again”?

    Do they despair as unemployment falls, month after month? “How boring. Why can’t we lose jobs like France and Germany”?

    Do they weep that we’re number one in Europe for inward investment? “Forget it – we don’t want foreign money here. Let’s have that Social Chapter, load costs on those companies and drive the new jobs away”?

    Mr Chairman, you know they don’t. No sensible person is asking for that.

    So, I say to the “time for a change” merchants: “Find me a better country in the world in which to live”.

    If you can – well, bye, bye, we’ll miss you.

    If you can’t, pipe down – and let us get on with the job of building the well-being of our nation to a level it has never known before.

    A Smaller, But Better State

    Mr Chairman, my Conservatism is first about helping more people realise their own private hopes and personal ambitions.

    And second about removing the avoidable fears that blight too many lives.

    Over the years Government after Government has wanted to do this.

    Now we have the prize we’ve all been seeking – the strongest, most stable economy that Britain has seen since way before the war.

    So now, we can really make progress.

    My aim is to make the state smaller, but better.

    That’s why our target is a 20 pence basic rate of tax – and for state spending to fall below 40 per cent of the nation’s wealth.

    Working two days a week for the state – surely that’s enough for all of us?

    I believe that if things can be done better in the private sector, they should be.

    But I also believe some things should always be done in the public sector.

    And if so, they must be done well.

    Over the years we’ve reined back the size of the state. Steel coal, gas, electricity, water, airways – all once leeched on the state for subsidy.

    Now they’re in the private sector, yielding taxes for schools, hospitals, police.

    It’s a remarkable record – a smaller state, lower income tax and better services.

    And there’s further to go.

    The Next Conservative Government

    Mr Chairman, in the last few days some interviewers have asked me: “It’s been a tough few years, Prime Minister. Why do you want to go on?”

    I’ll tell you.

    Because I dream of a people’s Britain, in which all the people – not only the confident and well to do – can make their own choices and mould their own lives.

    I believe that’s their right. Their right – to choose, to save, to spend, to know that they own.

    I want to see everyone have these opportunities.

    To see the have-nots become the haves.

    That’s why we started the sale of council houses.

    Why we’ve sold shares and spread savings.

    And it’s why we’re going to provide secure pensions for everyone.

    Because the Conservatism I’m talking about isn’t just for the lucky, the fortunate, the able, the self-confident.

    It’s for everyone.

    For those for whom life is a struggle.

    For those who don’t have the best education.

    Don’t have a decent home.

    Don’t live in a safe neighbourhood.

    Don’t have a job.

    I should know. I come from them. I care for them. And I long to see them have their fair share of the good things of life.

    Opportunity for all: the next Conservative Government is for them, as much as for anyone else.

    We’ll make sure that those who don’t have, do have.

    People’s Pensions

    Mr Chairman, as Britain grows wealthier, we must see to it that more of what the State spends goes where the taxpayer would like it to go.

    I believe in the Welfare State – and the security and comfort it offers the British people. I’m determined it will be there for our children and grandchildren.

    But we can only guarantee its future if it remains affordable.

    We have set out recently big ideas to do just that.

    Today’s pensions, for example, rely on each younger generation being able to pay for the old.

    As more people live longer, can we be sure that would always be possible?

    It’s a giant of uncertainty that no truly caring government could ignore. A giant that the next Conservative government will begin to slay.

    We aim to build on what William Beveridge intended.

    To build up – over time – a secure pension scheme for all.

    But we’ll go one better.

    Ours won’t be a state pension – though it will have a state guarantee.

    It will be a People’s Pension, owned by everyone – personally. It will be theirs – by right.

    It will be funded by real investments – not unwritten promises and rising tax.

    It will guarantee the new generation – our children and grandchildren – not just the basic state pension, but their own personal pool of savings.

    By the time they retire, someone on average earnings should have built up £130,000 of savings. Enough to provide a pension of £175 a week.

    It’s a long-term plan – a true Conservative idea – one that will give our children a security and independence that previous generations could only dream of.

    Protecting Savings

    Often true security and peace of mind come from savings.

    People save for security. For comfort in retirement. Against a rainy day. To ensure the dignity of self-provision.

    They worry about the cost of care if they grow infirm when they are elderly.

    And they despair when their savings are eaten up to pay for care.

    This week we announced a plan to tackle this problem.

    We will lessen the worries so many people have about the cost of nursing home care.

    It’s quite simple. A partnership.

    We intend to help people who plan ahead and take out insurance against long-term care.

    In return, for every £1 they spend, we’ll disregard an extra £1.50 of their assets and protect them from being used to pay for care.

    This will mean people can protect more of their savings for themselves and their families.

    Too many people who have prudently saved still find their money stripped from them by the accident of illness in old age. This will protect them.

    It’s the second great aim for the next Conservative Government – to banish the fear of losing their lifetime’s assets to pay for care in illness.

    I believe in the cascade of wealth between the generations. So we’ll help build it up. Help protect it – and, as we can afford it, steadily reduce the burden of tax upon it.

    A Modern National Health Service

    Over the last generations we’ve seen the greatest leap forward in the health of the nation that we’ve ever known.

    People are living better and living longer.

    That’s good.

    But, as more and more people live longer and longer, the demands on our doctors and hospitals must grew.

    And that means constant investment in new science and new treatments in the National Health Service.

    If you spend all your time worrying what will happen when you lose your health, you’ve no time left to enjoy it.

    So here’s a pledge to fight the third great fear – the fear of disease.

    It’s a pledge that no other party has matched.

    A pledge for you to take to the doorsteps, to the millions of families who treasure the peace of mind the National Health Service gives.

    We will continue to improve the Health Service year on year.

    We’ll plough savings back into health care year on year.

    And the next Conservative Government will provide more money for the NHS, over and above inflation, year on year on year, for the next five years.

    It’s why prosperity matters.

    Because growing national wealth will mean better National Health.

    Our aim is to make good health more infectious than disease.

    As far as the NHS is concerned, if you’re ill we’ll make it better.

    A Guarantee of Standards

    Mr Chairman, Britain will live or die by whether British workers can think better and work faster than our competitors. The prizes of the next century will go to countries with the best educated workforce.

    That means we need the best education for every child, in every class, in every school.

    We’ve come a long way – but not far enough to meet tomorrow’s challenges or parents’ wishes.

    Parents deserve more choice. We’ll give it to them.

    No ‘ifs’. No ‘buts’. No small print or sly evasions.

    More grant-maintained schools, more specialist schools, more grammar schools.

    If that’s what they want, that is what we – and we alone – guarantee they can have.

    Choice is crucial – but it’s no use if it’s a choice between two bad schools.

    Children have only one chance at education. Many schools are good. Exam results impressive. But it’s not universal.

    I’m not prepared to stand by and see children let down by bad schools and bad councils.

    That’s why we’ve put in place our reforms. A national curriculum. Local management. Tests. Tables. And inspections. We had to fight for them all – against bitter hostility from Labour.

    Our reforms have shone a spotlight on the dark corners of the education system. Exposed failing schools and the failing education authorities that run them.

    As a result, in our Manifesto, we can now do what no previous government has ever dared to do before.

    We can offer parents a guarantee of education standards.

    Where we need to, we’ll take action to turn failing schools around.

    And where whole education authorities are failing, – and, sadly, some are – we’ll send in professional teams to sort them out.

    Councils like Islington, Hackney, Haringey – the real Labour heartlands – have failed and failed and failed.

    They have betrayed generations of children.

    Time after time tests and tables show Labour councils to be the bleakest areas of the education landscape.

    And the Leader of the Labour Party has the gall to say that education is his passion. “Education. Education. Education.”

    But what has he ever done about those deplorable Labour councils?

    Nothing. Nothing. Nothing.

    Nothing – but turn the car key and drive away to another borough and another school.

    Towards a GM school that Tory policies made possible – and which his policies would destroy.

    I don’t believe children are less clever in some areas. I believe they’re let down in some areas.

    I come from local government but I have no brief for it when it fails. So I offer this warning.

    We will not follow Mr Blair and Ms Harman as – head aloof – they pass by on the other side.

    We will go into those education authorities. We will examine them. And where they are failing, we will take their powers from them – in the interests of our children.

    The Inner Cities

    Our Conservatism must be for everyone – whoever they are, wherever they live.

    We want to spread the prosperity of the suburbs into our inner cities.

    Already we’ve transformed the face of many cities.

    But we must do far, far more.

    We’re going to tackle the problem of inner city deprivation more imaginatively than any Government before.

    We’ll bring to every tenant the choice of freedom from shoddy council control – for a fresh start with a better landlord.

    We’ll build a new partnership between public and private sector.

    Where tenants agree, we’ll bring in private capital to improve their lives on a scale never seen.

    To transform housing; improve schools; fight crime.

    Dignity, security, prosperity must walk down every street in the land.

    And that must include the inner cities.

    Grown up Government: Preparing for the Future – Now

    Mr Chairman, in the first years of this century Winston Churchill and Lloyd George laid the foundations of the Welfare State.

    The wartime and post-war governments, drawing on the work of William Beveridge, brought in state provision on a huge scale. It was right for its time. And, for a long time, it has served us well.

    But now we are on the threshold of a new century. Right across the world – even in the richest nations – people are looking forward and saying that the State cannot shoulder all the burden -and for ever.

    Some things, like the free National Health Service, is a principle we must never change.

    But, I believe it is time for the third great move forward in public welfare.

    To bolster social security with personal and family security.

    To build alongside State provision growing private wealth.

    To replace the insecurity of dependence for many with the security of independence for all.

    I have laid some of those ideas before you today.

    This is a bold vision – a grand ambition. It is what I have always longed to do.

    When it’s accomplished – and the next generations have the savings and security that we are preparing for them – then I believe people will look back and say: “How lucky we are that governments then looked forward – not twenty minutes or twenty days, but twenty, forty, sixty years.”

    Mr Chairman, government is a grown-up business.

    It’s not about clutching for the advantage of the hour.

    It’s about working for the advantage of future generations some of us may never even know.

    And to do that, whatever may be the short-term reaction – from the unthinking, the uncomprehending, the sheer opportunist.

    Doing the right thing, at the right time, for the ends we know to be right.

    Labour

    Our record is in the book, our policies are on the table, our principles are clear.

    So when people go into the polling booth, and put a cross in the box beside the Conservative candidate, they’ll know what it stands for.

    You can only be sure with the Conservatives.

    But before they mark that X, I’d like them to think carefully – very carefully indeed.

    That X will decide the fate of Britain for the next five years.

    But they could mark X somewhere else.

    X for the unknown quantity.

    An X that might stand for … well, just about anything.

    Imagine waking up the morning if the X files stacked up for Labour.

    It would be like waking up on an aeroplane that’s taxiing for take-off. What would the new captain say?

    “Welcome on board. Before we take-off, I’d just like you to welcome your crew.

    You probably remember the last crew from the same training school crash-landed. So did the one before. Indeed, everyone before. But don’t worry, we’re new.

    In fact, we’re so new none of us have flown before, except on a television simulator.

    During the flight, our bar steward, John Prescott, will be coming through the cabin, offering a selection of goods, all of which cost more tax.

    I can’t tell you yet what altitude we’re flying at. Or what speed. Or what direction. But I’m hoping a focus group will tell me shortly.

    Our destination – is unknown. But I can tell you the flight time will be about five years.

    In the meantime, please ensure your seat-belt is securely fastened.”

    Please ensure your seat-belt is securely fastened. That’s surely true. You would certainly need it.

    Imagine.

    Trade union bosses licking their lips, their lunch boxes packed with their sandwiches and pay demands.

    Businessmen reassessing their options, thinking how many they’d have to sack once Labour signed the Social Chapter.

    Currency markets holding their breath, remembering how the last Labour government bankrupted Britain.

    Scottish Nationalists preparing to say ‘Whatever Mr Blair offers, it’s not enough’.

    And the European Federalists, rubbing their hands with glee at the thought of a Britain that will never be isolated in Europe, no matter what they proposed.

    If Mr Blair ever walked in through the most famous door in the world, half the hopes of Britain would disappear out the back.

    It’s taken 18 years of sound government and sheer hard work by the British people to get us here.

    We must not throw it away. Throw it away with the wrong economic policy.

    No, Mr Chairman.

    It’s not time for a change.

    And it would not be safe to change.

    Not safe to change economic management.

    Not safe to adopt reckless and opportunistic commitments to constitutional change.

    Not safe to toe the line in Europe and wreck our competitiveness.

    I’ll tell you what it is time for.

    It’s time for the clear-headed.

    Time for the far-sighted.

    Time for the experienced.

    Time to be sure.

    It’s time for us.

    That’s why we’ll win.

  • Mr Major’s Conservative Central Council Speech – 30 March 1996

    Below is the text of Mr Major’s speech made to Conservative Central Council on Saturday 30th March 1996.

    PRIME MINISTER:

    Within a year or so we’ll fight a general election.

    At stake will be not just who forms the government, but what that means.

    In the Tory years, the quality of life has changed immeasurably for the better and now it’s moving up again.

    We are poised for a step change in prosperity.

    The world knows it and says it. The Opposition knows it – but denies it. Because Conservative success means Labour failure. But I can live with that. And so, I think, can you.

    We must tell people about the opportunities ahead.

    Tell them what’s at risk.

    Never mind the opinion polls. Bucking the trend is the story of my life.

    So, it’s time to stop underselling what we’ve done, what we stand for, and time to start selling what we care about and what we’re going to do.

    Mr Chairman, as you know we have been holding hundreds of meetings up and down the country. It has been the biggest consultation exercise the party has ever had.

    It’s shown our gut instincts haven’t changed: we still back the traditional values that brought us into the Party in the first place.

    But we’ve always been able to move with the times.

    So, we’ve been turning our beliefs into practical political action.

    Enterprise

    Now to business. First, some facts.

    We’re enjoying the longest period of low inflation for nearly 50 years.

    The lowest mortgage rates for 30 years.

    Fewer days lost to strikes since records began.

    More of our people in jobs, more investment.

    And the lowest tax burden of any major European economy.

    And yet it is fact, fact, fact. When – in all the long history of our country – could any Government have said as much?

    This is the result of a government getting the important things right. It didn’t happen by magic. That’s the prize tough decisions have won for us.

    Britain can be proud of what Britain is achieving. But we must go on. We must build on what we’ve done and make Britain the unrivalled Enterprise Centre of Europe.

    There can be no future for high taxing, high spending governments. That’s a nightmare from the past. A socialist vision – let it go. We don’t want it back.

    Our aim is to get taxes down.

    And not only income tax. I want to cut and, when possible, abolish inheritance tax. Labour wince when I say that.

    But I can’t defend a tax that stops children inheriting what their parents have worked to earn and save.

    It’s a tax on the family. And helping the family is what we’re about.

    So I don’t want our children to see the fruits of their parent’s life time work disappear forever into the Government’s coffers. I just believe it’s wrong.

    Taxes should come from a growing economy. And a growing economy comes from competition – the drive of the market.

    Competition works.

    The state once ran industries into the ground, often. But look at them now.

    Telephones – now amongst the cheapest in Europe.

    Electricity – where prices have fallen and are set to fall further.

    Gas – where prices have fallen by 20% and are set to fall further still.

    This hasn’t happened in the water industry – yet. But it will. And I’ll tell you why.

    Because we’re going to introduce competition into the water industry. It’s worked wonders in gas, phones and electricity. And it should do the same for water.

    How Labour hate all this. They know none of it would have happened if they’d been in power. They mouth the words of the market – but they don’t believe a syllable.

    They loathe the thought of the private ownership of British Rail.

    They can’t stomach the fact that enterprise and competition will improve the service and bring down the price.

    They’re positively mortified that new private investment will build in a new railway system for a new millennium.

    They’d rather defend a public sector monopoly that’s become a music hall joke.

    Perhaps you think I’m being unfair.

    But am I?

    These are the same people who said that privatising British Airways would turn it into the pantomime horse of capitalism.

    Well, some pantomime. Some horse.

    British Airways is now one of the most successful airlines in the world.

    Don’t ask me. Just ask the champagne socialists. Would they rather travel on British Airways or good old state run Aeroflot?

    Privatisation has given millions of people the chance to own shares. There are now more shareholders than trade unionists. And there are many Trade Unionists who are shareholders.

    Take the rail union, RMT.

    They own shares in privatised companies. They want the profits of the market. But that doesn’t stop them attacking the privatisation of British Rail.

    Don’t do as I do. Do as I say. That’s the theme that runs right through the Labour movement.

    Once Labour promised common ownership. Now they call it stakeholding. But – as usual – it’s common deception.

    We mean ownership by individuals for themselves and their families. They don’t.

    We want to make the capital owning democracy a living reality. They don’t.

    They want people’s wealth. We want wealth for the people.

    More ownership.

    More people owning a share of the company they work for.

    Let’s be clear. I’m not just talking about directors or managers on the executive floor. I’m talking about staff on the factory floor and at the supermarket checkout. They can be owners too.

    In the last Budget, Ken Clarke made it even more attractive for employees to own shares in their company. Now it’s up to industry to spread employee share ownership.

    Here’s a challenge for them. Let’s have the majority of workers in Britain’s large companies holding shares in those companies by the end of this decade.

    That will be an important part of making Britain an enterprise culture to its core.

    We must make change work for us. That’s what enterprise is about.

    Twenty years ago, pocket calculators were an oddity. Portable phones were hardly heard of. The information superhighway was somewhere off the M6. A lap top was something you sat on, not worked on.

    We’re having to learn a whole new vocabulary.

    New technology is going to affect all our lives.

    We’ll be able to work or shop from home, to send messages to anyone, anywhere, any time. These opportunities are on our doorstep, but for many people it’s still difficult to imagine. We need to open the Nation’s mind to the opportunities ahead.

    So we’re getting together with industry on a project for the millennium. To let as many people as possible try out computers – in schools, libraries and shops in the high street. These skills will equip us for the new century. They offer tremendous and exciting opportunities. We need to know about them.

    We’re not just creating jobs and prosperity, this year and next year. We’re out to build the enterprise and skills to secure jobs and prosperity that lasts.

    Opportunity

    I tell you who does love these new things: children.

    Tomorrow’s their world. But they won’t stand a chance of making the most of it unless we deliver world class education.

    Education is the door to opportunity.

    Every parent wants the best for their children. Especially parents in the Shadow Cabinet.

    There’s nothing wrong with that. It’s every parent’s right.

    But there’s the little matter of other people’s children too.

    We believe it’s right to offer them the best as well.

    We do. Labour don’t. And that’s the difference.

    Labour can’t decide its policy on education.

    For GM schools, against GM schools: for selection, against selection.

    Every time they settle the line, some Labour frontbencher breaks it.

    While they divide, we deliver.

    Under the Conservatives, education has changed a lot.

    Year by year, we’ve been clawing back from the worst excesses of the comprehensive system. Choice is expanding. Standards are rising.

    The National Curriculum, tests, performance tables, regular inspection, a whole range of schools.

    All this is new.

    But there’s more to be done.

    Gillian Shephard has put standards and discipline firmly back on the agenda – and she’ll have more to say about them soon.

    Teachers deserve our support on this and I promise you, they’ll get it.

    Every parent is concerned about those crucial years at the start of schooling. So we’re turning nursery education over time from a nice dream to a reality for every four year old whose parents want it.

    But that’s not all. We have ambitions to ensure that by the time children are seven, they can master the basic skills that underpin all learning.

    Teaching children basic skills is just the bare minimum. Children need to use today’s technology with confidence. They can access a huge library of information in seconds. The computer can be their personal tutor to help them learn arithmetic or a foreign language.

    So we’re working on training teachers and staff, putting the latest kit in our schools and linking schools up to the new world of information.

    Britain already has a head start.

    We’re now developing substantial and practical plans to build on that progress. To engage industry and private finance in our ambitions to transform technology in schools for the next century. Giving our nation’s children the skills they’ll need for our nation’s future.

    Not just pipe dreams – we’re delivering practical action.

    The education system we’re building reflects a simple truth every child is different. And every child is special.

    Let me turn to a controversial matter.

    I believe choice and selection does have a place in education. And so do you.

    Not the old 11 plus – that’s gone – but more selection in schools. And if parents want them, that could mean more schools like the old grammar schools.

    It’s time to say goodbye to the political correctness of the levellers-down. We’re going to give all schools more control over their own affairs.

    Earlier this week, Gillian Shephard set out our aim: to give all schools as much power as possible to take their decisions about as much as possible of their budgets.

    More of the money delivered straight into the hands of teachers and governors, bypassing bureaucracy.

    We want to free our schools from the straitjacket of uniformity.

    Freedom to demand the best from our brightest pupils.

    Freedom to help the weaker pupil.

    Freedom to give opportunity to every pupil.

    Conservatism instinctively knows that freedom works.

    Mr Chairman, there’s another point: there’s no place for intellectual snobbery in the classroom.

    Practical skills must be respected.

    We’re planning a single clear national framework of qualifications with common certificates that all children can aim for. And with that will come new opportunities to combine academic work with learning at work. New modem apprenticeships are a success. We intend to open that opportunity to more and more of our young people.

    Welfare

    Mr. Chairman, fate does not equip everyone with the same gifts or the same good fortune. We are a generous hearted nation. We’re more than willing to help those who genuinely need it.

    I believe we must encourage the successful so that we can protect those who need help.

    To do that, we must build a welfare system we can afford: one that reflects Conservative values – self-sufficiency. Responsibility. Independence.

    That means doing three things.

    First, cracking down on fraud and abuse. On Monday, Peter Lilley will launch another step in our campaign – an area by area focus to put the spotlight on benefit cheats. We’re going to protect the taxpayer and close down the welfare rackets.

    Second, we’re going to direct money to those who genuinely need it to help them back on their feet.

    People out of work and looking for a job deserve help. They’ll get it.

    The long term unemployed need special help. They too will get it. We’re piloting schemes to help get them back to work. But after that, if they refuse to accept work on offer, their benefit will be reduced. I believe that’s fair and right.

    Third, we must help people secure independence for themselves and their families.

    More people are living longer. We need to help families support relatives who can no longer be cared for at home. Our Party feels strongly about this.

    So, next month we’ll set out our proposals to deal with this challenge – to help protect the family home and lifetime’s savings.

    Our starting point is the classic Conservative theme of partnership.

    Very simply, if people take out insurance to help pay for their care, the state will reward their contribution by safeguarding more of their assets when that insurance runs out.

    And we’re looking at ideas to help people in the near future, not just in the far distance. There is no perfect solution to this. But our ideas are fresh and far- reaching.

    Responsibility will be rewarded. Prudence will be recognised. And the elderly will have the chance to protect the savings they’ve worked for all their lives.

    Public services

    Mr. Chairman, the usual dismal voices say Britain won’t be able to afford high quality public services in the future. I think that’s nonsense.

    We taxpayers pay for public services. We pay with taxes compulsorily taken from our income. I’ll tell you what I think.

    We taxpayers have a right to expect the best as if we’re paying cash on the nail. In fact, we’ve done better; we’ve paid in advance. And when we deal with the public sector, we shouldn’t be shunted from file to file.

    To make sure they’re not, we’re breaking down the large bureaucracies.

    Wherever possible, less bureaucracy at the centre, more choice at the grassroots.

    In this, we are the polar opposite to Labour.

    They’re wedded to control by anyone except the people. Bureaucracy, not taxpayers. Trade unions, not consumers. Politicians, not people. Labour don’t trust people. Unless they’re people in authority – lots of them – calling the shots.

    I’m not prepared to let public services remain an outcrop of socialist planning, a kind of prescriptive service, oblivious to the needs and wishes of the people who pay for it.

    So, let’s have an end to the faceless institutions, the bureaucratic assault courses, the unanswered telephones, all run from the top down. Instead, services should be run on a human scale. Decisions taken close to those they affect. And that’s what we’re building. The benefits are already clear.

    In self-governing schools – schools run by teachers, governors and parents.

    And in our hospitals – where team work has cut waiting lists. Are our reforms working? Yes – indeed they are.

    One example: since our reforms began, the number of people waiting more than a year for an operation has fallen by 90%. Thousands of people, old and young, are enjoying a better quality of life because they have been treated better and earlier.

    Let no one doubt our commitment to our National Health Service. Our commitment is there – in concrete, bricks and mortar.

    Labour founded the NHS. They’re proud of it. But built it up. Every week, since 1979, we’ve seen a new capital scheme worth a million pounds.

    And we should be proud of that.

    And we should also be proud that, thanks to our reforms, GPs now have greater power and freedom to serve more and more of their patients’ needs.

    We’re going to build on that. We want to give Britain’s 30,000 GPs the freedom to provide, in the communities they serve, the treatments that people need.

    In the summer, we’ll set out some of the next steps down this road – including opportunities for GPs to offer a range of hospital treatments in their surgeries.

    Our aim now is a far reaching one: it is to allow GPs’ practices to become the cottage hospitals of the 21st century. To ensure we offer better health care, closer to people, than any other nation can provide.

    Law and Order

    Mr Chairman, in building Our Nation’s Future we must also take forward our natural Conservative instincts for a society based on law and order.

    For decades rising crime and lawlessness seemed unstoppable.

    There was a culture that tried to excuse crime.

    But crime is caused not by society, by poverty, by circumstances. It’s caused by criminals kicking the door in for personal gain.

    For every crime there is a victim. A victim for whom the fear, loss, outrage and intrusion far outweigh the financial consequences.

    Let me take one illustration of many.

    Burglary.

    I had a flat burgled many years ago. Not much was taken because there wasn’t much to take.

    But it was vandalised.

    I was young. Fit. But I never felt quite the same in that flat again.

    How much worse for people whose family home has been ransacked.

    Whose possessions have been rifled through, whose security and safety shattered – quite apart from financial loss.

    I have no hesitation in seeking tougher punishment for such a crime. And especially for the criminal who burgles again and again – the serial thief.

    Let me tell the Conference: I am absolutely behind Michael Howard’s proposals to secure longer sentences for those who commit crimes like this time and again. And we will introduce laws to that effect.

    I believe it’s a fair punishment. Let me tell you why. I believe it will deter.

    But more important still, if we know somebody is likely to go out and commit more crimes, we owe it to the public to put them out of harm’s way.

    That’s the surest way to continue cutting the crime rate. And that’s exactly what we’ll do.

    But we need to put equal emphasis on order – or perhaps civility. On a society where the decent common courtesies are expected and observed.

    We should not have to tolerate loutish behaviour. People’s rights to quiet and privacy should be respected. Simple obvious rules – on the roads, in the parks, on public transport – should be followed.

    To some, these things may seem unimportant compared with major crimes. But they cause many people distress in their daily lives.

    So, as we build and extend the role of schemes like neighbourhood watch, we’ll put order as well as law back where it belongs – in our communities.

    So when people say to me, is it cost effective to have policemen on the beat, to have special constables patrolling our neighbourhoods, my answer is unequivocally yes. That’s how we’ll give people reassurance. That’s how we’ll nip crime in the bud.

    That’s what you want. That’s what we’ll deliver.

    The Nation

    Mr Chairman, amidst a sea of change, a united nation brings security. We need that security now more than ever.

    Our nation’s history is one of change. But sensible, careful change, never change for change’s sake.

    Scotland and England united are the cement that binds the United Kingdom together. Scotland is vital to the Union. The Union is vital to Scotland. And the whole United Kingdom would suffer if that Union were damaged.

    For me, this issue dwarfs the daily political debates.

    Some cynics ask: why do I care about the Union? After all, they say, why should I care about devolution? With Scotland out of the Union, there’s more likely to be entrenched Conservative majorities at Westminster for ever and a day.

    That may be true, but they’re forgetting the overall interest of the United Kingdom.

    I reject the narrow selfishness of a little England or a little Scotland. I believe that Scotland and England – and Wales and Northern Ireland – have all benefited from the historic constitutional settlement which created our United Kingdom. A unity Labour plans put at risk.

    So Scotland faces a choice.

    It can share in that success – lead it even – and be at the heart of the Enterprise Centre of Europe.

    Or it can cut itself off. Saddle itself with higher taxes. Destroy jobs with the Social Chapter and minimum wage – carrots held out by Labour that would become sticks across industries’ backs.

    And it would watch, helplessly, as investors get out their pocket calculators and their airflight timetables and go away.

    The scheme for a tax-raising Scottish parliament is separatism by instalments. The Scottish Nationalists have already acclaimed it as the fast track to independence and they’re right.

    Could there honourably be devolution without fewer Scottish members at Westminster? No, there could not. Without such a cut, Scotland would become the most over-represented part of the United Kingdom. There’s a word for that – an old word: gerrymandering.

    And could it possibly be right that Scottish MPs at Westminster should be able to vote on purely English matters, while English MPs would have no say over matters devolved to a Scottish Parliament?

    My answer to that is simple.

    ‘I don’t believe that we could for ever maintain a situation in which Scots and Welsh Members vote on, say, English education and pay beds while the English cannot vote on Scottish and Welsh equivalents’. You won’t ever guess who said that. Robin Cook. That’s what Robin Cook thinks. The first good sense he’s ever spoken.

    Then there’s Labour’s Tartan Tax. Why should people in Scotland pay more tax than in England? What does the Labour Party have against the Scots?

    Labour have the cheek to suggest that they might even cut taxes. What an untruth to set before the nation! For how long do they think English MPs will vote 30% more money to Scotland so that a Scottish Assembly can use it to cut taxes north of Berwick? The proposition is ludicrous.

    Mr Chairman, my commitment to the Union is total. It’s not just a political commitment. It’s emotional as well. I admit it. And I’m not ashamed of that.

    I feel, with every fibre of my being, that the result of this folly would be the dismemberment of the United Kingdom.

    That would be the burial of our history, the interment of a great good. It would deprive future generations of a sane, flexible, tolerant system. It would weaken England, weaken Scotland and would begin the destruction of a kingdom whose very reason for being is to be united.

    People who support a tax-raising Scottish parliament are sowing dragon’s teeth. These proposals will lead – implacably and irrevocably – to the break-up of the United Kingdom. That is not speculation, it is fact. I do not say “may” or “might”; I say “will”.

    Scotland and the Scots are central to the British identity. We are that close.

    Let us work and live together, as one nation, as we have been for centuries. If we do anything else, we shall grow smaller – all of us – separately.

    PERORATION

    Mr Chairman, I’ve set out some of our plans. There is much more yet to come.

    Ahead of our United Kingdom lies tremendous – and exciting – opportunities.

    The opportunity for more people to realise their ambitions and their hopes and their dreams.

    A better life for their family. Their own home. Their own savings. A secure job. A good education for their children.

    I became a Conservative because I was brought up to be proud of our country. Our traditions, our heritage.

    I still am.

    And so are the vast majority of the British people.

    Our hopes are their hopes.

    That’s why we’ve trounced Labour four times in a row.

    And that’s why we’ll do it again.

  • Mr Major’s Speech at Conservative Central Council – 1 April 1995

    Below is the text of Mr Major’s speech at the Conservative Central Council Meeting at the International Convention Centre at Birmingham, on Saturday 1st April 1995.

    PRIME MINISTER:

    We’ve had a great Conference here in Birmingham. Our first, but not our last.

    This Central Council has often in the past been a platform for a change in our fortunes.

    Three years ago – it was from a Central Council – we set out and won a general election many believed we would lose.

    I believed we would win – and so we did – in three weeks, with a recession at our throat.

    Now we have two years, with a strong recovery at our side.

    So let me tell you something loud and clear right at the start. I believe we will win again.

    I have no time for faint hearts.

    The next election is there to be won. By the party with the verve and tenacity to reach out to people and catch their imagination.

    We did it before. We can do it again.

    And I expect every single person in our Party to want it, and work for it, as hard as I will.

    To those who say look at the polls, I simply say this: it is possible to look at the polls too much and your principles too little.

    I have a way in life. I learned it as a boy. I offer it to you. Stick to your principles. Stick to your guns. However rough the going may be, just keep going.

    So today I’m going to tell you how we’re going to win back the faith and trust of the British people.

    Let me take you back to five years ago when I became Chancellor of the Exchequer. Let me tell you what was on my mind. I looked back on 50 years of a boom and bust economy. Good years. Followed by bad years. If the good years coincided with elections, you won. If they didn’t, you lost.

    Over generations, we slipped back economically as a country. I grew up in that period. Even from the back streets of Brixton I found it depressing. And I was determined to try and change it. To help our economy to grow and to beat other countries.

    For the truth is that without growth every year, no Government will be able to improve education and health, increase pensions, provide care in the community, better law and order or anything else.

    But I want those improvements.

    So I need long-term growth. A stronger, more prosperous country. That’s why we’ve had to do things that have disappointed our supporters and seemed against our natural instincts.

    You know what I mean. We are the Party of low taxes. But we had to put them up. Now the economy is growing again and we can look forward to bringing them down.

    We are the Party of law and order. But crime continued to rise. So we put through controversial measures to tackle it. Now recorded crime is beginning to fall – the largest fall for 40 years.

    We’re the Party of personal well-being. Yet, on our watch, unemployment rose to nearly 3 million. But we kept our nerve. We pursued the right policies. Now it has fallen 600,000; down 1,000 a day. It is now among the lowest of the large nations of Western Europe. It is falling fastest, too. And I believe it will fall far further.

    So times are changing. And so will the political climate. The country has been through a difficult period. No doubt we’ve made mistakes. But we have learned from them. We have weathered the storm. And now we are poised to return to our natural agenda from a position of strength. Unrestrained by the iron bands of recession, the country can look forward with confidence.

    – the economy grew last year by over 4 per cent;

    – we expect it to grow by at least 3 per cent this year and next;

    – prices are rising at the slowest rate most people can remember;

    – exports have risen at record levels as we win markets across the world;

    – manufacturing expanding again – and so, too, employment in it.

    In all we’ve done we have been playing for the long-term. My target is growth every year; higher living standards every year; manufacturing growing every year; public services improving every year – and to do that without fear of inflation.

    No one has achieved that before. It’s meant saying ‘no’ to short-term options. ‘No’ to fashionable ideas. ‘Wait’ for the tax cuts we all wish to see.

    It did hurt. I said it would. I told people in 1989 – “if it isn’t hurting, it isn’t working.” But now it is working. And the reality is – if we stick to present policies we will improve life for everyone and double living standards within 25 years.

    The prize at stake is that, after the next election, the Government in office will inherit the soundest, most secure economy of any Government since the 1st World War. It will be able to address its social and political agenda more freely than any predecessor.

    Mr Chairman, I want that Government to be a Conservative Government.

    It is a massive achievement. We can be proud of it. So let’s use every day and every hour and every minute of the next two years to tell people of the great future that lies ahead and once again earn their trust and support.

    That’s the fight ahead of us. I relish it. It is a fight we can win.

    Our work is long-term – but already it’s changing our country for the better.

    And while we’ve been doing this, where have Labour been? In the lobbies – in the TV studios – in the streets – against us, that’s where they’ve been.

    Now they say they’ve changed. They say they’re changing everything they’ve always stood for. They claim to be entering our world.

    If they want to fight us on that ground, I look forward to it. They’ve been squatting here a few months. We’ve been living here for centuries.

    Ours isn’t an off-the peg philosophy. We’re not trying out someone else’s ideas for size. We’re not putting on blue in this year’s spring fashion show because “red’s out”.

    Our policies flow from core convictions, gut instincts, beliefs and ideals we’ve all grown up with.

    In these debates we are in copperbottomed, mainstream Conservative home territory. And no slick, sloganising, snake-oil salesmen from the Labour Party are going to take it from us.

    Labour today is just one more synthetic PR campaign. The workers are out. The minders are in.

    Their ideas are picked up from opinion polls, techniques derived from advertisements, language copied from us.

    Nothing is original. All is derivative.

    And if there’s one thing we’ve learned lately, it is that trading in derivatives is a risky business.

    Let me illustrate Labour’s technique for you.

    Last week the Leader of the Labour Party said Conservatives don’t understand duty, nor do they act upon it.

    Frankly, for that comment, he deserved to be laughed at from Lands End to John O’ Groats.

    Duty, responsibility, self-responsibility are the core of the Conservative instinct.

    Perhaps, Mr Blair simply intended a casual political kick. After all, it’s the sort of scatter-gun, all purpose abuse that is the daily language of new Labour.

    The technique is old and effective – throw mud until it sticks.

    Well, I know this Tory Party.

    I grew up in it.

    I am of it – from the grass roots upwards.

    And I know we’re none of the things Labour claim and we never have been. Duty and responsibility are instinctive to Conservatives as a Party, and as people.

    Ask the huge number of Conservatives who run Voluntary Service, Meals on Wheels, Citizen’s Advice Bureaux, Red Cross shops, and a hundred thousand charities up and down the land.

    I will tell you who attack duty and responsibility. Those politicians who claim the state is responsible for everything and everyone.

    Those who believe the welfare state should cope with everything.

    Those who promise that whatever the problem is. the Government can cure it.

    And we know who those politicians are. And they’re not in the Conservative Party. They’re in the Labour Party.

    Mr Chairman, we Conservatives have not changed our fundamental values for 250 years. Our ambitions and hopes have moved forward. But our values have been constant.

    In 1979 we promised to get Britain off its knees and on its feet. To end hyperinflation, curb old style Union power, turn round loss-making nationalised industry, and begin to spread choke and ownership to everyone.

    We’ve done that. Now we must turn to the future.

    Some months ago I set in hand a massive exercise to build the next phase of Conservatism – a new agenda, not just for the next Election, but clear through into the next century.

    This work is in its early stages – but today let me restate some of the core values we stand for and lift the veil on some of the ideas we’re developing.

    First, that most fundamental of Tory instincts, the pursuit of prosperity and security for all.

    Prosperity begets security. But prosperity doesn’t drop as the gentle rain from heaven. It has to be earned.

    Our industry has to be competitive. Britain must mean business. Britain must believe, in business. Britain must reward hard work. And must welcome the healthy profits of success.

    I’ll tell you when we’ll know for certain that prosperity will grow in this country. When our leading companies are world beaters. When our exports are booming. And when Britain is a magnet for foreign investment. That’s when we’ll create new jobs and lasting wealth.

    Mr Chairman, I have news for you – that time is here. That time is now. Billion after billion of dollars, yen and marks poured into Britain by foreign investors. They’re not here for our weather. They’re here for our prospects.

    Toyota, Nissan, NEC, Samsung. Record inward investment. Attracted here not by sound bites, but by sound Tory policy.

    Mr Chairman, we’re here today in Birmingham, the heart of one of the great manufacturing regions of Europe. And I have good news for Birmingham. After decades of decline manufacturing is growing and expanding.

    Despite automation the number of jobs in manufacturing is growing as well.

    And something is happening today that I didn’t expect to see for years: Britain now has a current account surplus with Japan – and we’re selling them our cars, our televisions, our motorcycles and our cameras. Made in Britain. Sold in Japan.

    This is Britain as she was – making and selling goods of high quality to all parts of the world.

    And this is Britain as I want to see her.

    Our prosperity must be built on things we make as well as services we sell.

    We’re looking at how to improve services to industry. To see what more Government can do to help.

    Many of the things we sell will be made by small businesses. That is where the future jobs will come.

    So we’re looking at still more ways to encourage them.

    We’ll be making deeper cuts in regulation and red tape. And let no-one, anywhere, be in any doubt – we will resist pointless regulation in Europe.

    And that includes the Social Chapter of which Labour are so fond.

    There’s a world of new technology out there. We have to provide industry with the modern skills they need.

    Britain must be a world leader in the new industries of media and information technology. So we will soon announce new measures to ensure it is.

    Britain must have the best qualified workforce in Europe.

    By the year 2000 we are aiming for over 80 per cent of our young people to have 5 or more good GCSEs or their vocational equivalent.

    We want to make sure all our school leavers are good enough to get a job.

    We’ve made giant strides forward. Creating 41 new universities; bringing in tough new vocational qualifications to enhance skills and test the mind. We’ve set a long-term target of one child in 3 going into higher education. And, let me tell you today – we’ve hit it five years early.

    These changes will accelerate. They are the building blocks for prosperity. The humdrum, everyday policies that improve lives and build the security we seek.

    Mr Chairman, the second thing we stand for is a nation of opportunity.

    For the right to own and the power to choose.

    Ownership is the very core of Conservatism. We believe in a capital-owning democracy. Where people can do what they wish with more of the money they earn.

    We believe in a fair reward for hard work. And we’re going to carry those principles into the future.

    So let me tell you again today. We’re committed to continue cutting rates of income tax in the future – moving towards our long-term target of 20% as the standard rate. For us, the tax debate is how soon we can bring it down and by how much. Labour’s debate is about how much they should put it up.

    We Conservatives believe in thrift, with individuals encouraged to build up tax-free savings. That’s why we introduced tax-free TESSAs and PEPs. We want people to have the security and independence savings provide. And we want to do more to encourage them.

    I also hold dear the belief that people should be able to hand on security to their children, cascading wealth down the generations. Over the last decade we’ve doubled the threshold at which inheritance tax becomes payable. It’s been difficult to go further in the last two or three difficult years. But I’m committed to doing so as soon as we can afford it.

    I also want to provide more opportunity for people to help others. The talents and experience of pensioners are too often wasted at the moment. They should be used in ways that fulfil their lives and benefit the rest of us. It is high time that retirement was recognised as the opening up of new opportunity, not a drawing down of blinds.

    All of that also means building on that explosion of giving, and working and helping others that has marked the last twenty years. Do you know that 17 million people volunteer every year – 2 million more than 15 years ago? And the Labour Party insult them by prattling on about loss of community. Comments like that belittle those who give so much.

    But while they’ve been prattling, we’ve been planning.

    So in June we will announce a comprehensive programme for voluntary service. It will cover all ages. It will be the most far-reaching imitative ever. Not a centralised plan to compete with private effort – but one that will reach into the wellsprings of goodwill that are found in literally every street of our land.

    Nowhere is Conservative belief in opportunity and choice more important than in housing. The Right to Buy is not a chapter of history. It’s not yesterday; it’s today. 70,000 families a year are still becoming homeowners as a result of Right to Buy and similar schemes.

    But there’s always more to do. Too many people are still trapped in grey, impersonal housing estates. Shortly we’ll bring forward a Housing White Paper. It will show how we could offer a choice of decent housing for everybody – and extend home ownership still wider.

    On education, while I know this year’s settlement has been tight, I can assure you – education will be at the top of our priorities as the economy delivers further growth.

    I also want to see more Grant-maintained schools to underpin choice and opportunity – and this week Gillian Shephard announced we’re giving them new powers to borrow and build for the future.

    And, because opportunities start with the young, we will shortly also publish plans to fulfil our pledge to expand nursery education for all children aged four.

    These are practical steps to give people more control over their lives. Taken together, they amount to a massive and irreversible shift of power and choice from the state to individuals and their families.

    Mr Chairman, the third pillar of our beliefs is that we stand foursquare for decent commonsense values. That’s true across the board – but I want to concentrate today on the fight against crime.

    When I became Prime Minister I took the view that it was time to understand a little less and condemn a little more. By that I meant that we shouldn’t explain away why people commit crime. We should just say bluntly: “it’s wrong”.

    Michael Howard has been acting on this – toughening penalties, bringing in new ways to prevent crime, phasing out soft options like cautioning young offenders time and time again. I believe Michael deserves enormous credit for what he has achieved in the teeth of constant abuse every inch of the way.

    He deserves 100 per cent support from all of us – and he’ll certainly get it from me.

    Too much of that abuse has come from Labour. They know they have to talk about law and order. But talk is all they do. They talk tough and act soft. Time and again they have voted against our plans to prevent and punish crime.

    Mr Chairman, we stand for commonsense justice – delivered fairly but quickly. And frankly, I believe the administration of justice is often too slow, too complex and too costly. I’d like to change that.

    So we’ve asked a leading judge to look into court procedures in civil cases, to bring faster and less costly judgments.

    And we are also out to streamline criminal justice. That must include a change to the rules on disclosure. These place a very heavy burden on the prosecution and police, going beyond the balance that justice demands. Informants and witnesses can be put at risk. The police believe these rules should be changed – and we agree with them.

    I expect some of you know victims or witnesses who have felt shabbily treated on a visit to court – as if they came last, rather than first, in the order of priorities. So we’ll soon be sending out new standards for better treatment of victims and witnesses. It’s a terrifying experience to be a victim. And often frightening to be a witness as well. We should remember and respect those fears.

    In the war on crime we’re applying new technology. We’re introducing more and more closed-circuit television to help cut crime and delinquency in our city centres. Some people didn’t like it. But it’s been immensely successful. So we’ll now be working with business on comprehensive crime prevention measures in even more places.

    This month we’re giving police wider powers to take DNA samples to help catch criminals. We will build up a national DNA database – making life safer for the citizen and whole lot tougher for the criminal. It will be the first national DNA database in the world. And we’re moving at the same time towards a national fingerprint register too. This is using technology to catch crime. And in the battle against crime, it is right to use all the science at our disposal.

    Thousands of people want to help our police. So we are having a national call for volunteers to increase the number of special constables up towards 30,000. And those constables will be out on the beat.

    Mr Chairman, we are an open-hearted country to people in difficulties – and I hope we always will be. But we can’t afford to accept abuse of our asylum laws. And so this autumn there will be a new Bill to tighten the asylum rules.

    We are reforming the probation service – so that we’re able to bring in people of quality from all backgrounds.

    And we will be experimenting with tougher new penalties for young offenders. It is right to have an alternative to prison. But I don’t believe it should be a gentle Saturday afternoon stroll.

    And, yes, we must sort out problems that have arisen in some prisons. I was as angry as anyone to read of prison officers shopping for inmates. I am not against decent treatment. But I believe privileges should be earned – and stopped if behaviour is bad, So I can tell you today that from this summer a regime of sanctions as well as reward will begin to be seen in our prisons.

    We are ready to look at anything which will deter crime and make it more likely that we will catch criminals. That’s why I can also confirm that we will soon publish a Green Paper to canvass public views on possible ways to bring in identity cards. And I hope in the debate that will follow you will make your voice heard.

    Fourthly, Mr Chairman, just as we stand against crime, we stand for first class public services. Back in 1990 I set out to sweep away those old patronising couldn’t-care-less attitudes. Our people deserve better. I want Britain’s public services to be the best in the world.

    So we began a 10-year programme of change – performance standards, league tables, market testing, independent inspection, improved compensation, and proper attention to customer needs. An information revolution for the public. We’ve moved from a world in which bureaucracy wouldn’t even give you their names to one where the results of every school, every railway line, every police force, every council are published for all to see. It’s a programme that’s proving steadily more and more successful – and it’s growing day by day. We call it the Citizen’s Charter.

    Of course, services like health and education will always be provided in the public sector. But others need not. That’s why Britain led the world in denationalisation – moving lacklustre and loss-making public companies into the private sector.

    Privatisation has been a huge success. Perhaps that’s why it’s under such vicious attack from Labour. Prices have come down dramatically – phone bills, gas bills, electricity bills, they’re down again this week.

    Privatisation has worked wonders. And I don’t have a shred of doubt privatising British Rail will be a success. Nationalised British Rail has not delivered the service it should. It can and will be done better in the private sector.

    Labour talk of reversing the public sector changes we’ve made. They would throw hospitals, railways and schools back into turmoil.

    Dogma might win – but patients, passengers and pupils would all lose out.

    Finally, and perhaps most importantly, Mr Chairman, we stand for the nation – our United Kingdom. We are proud of its institutions, proud of its place in the world.

    We will do everything necessary to defend our nation. In the 1980s Conservative Governments stood firm against communism. The result? The cold war was won – among the greatest triumphs for freedom, free enterprise, for our ideals in all our history. 400 million people free of repression. It wasn’t Labour – old, new, borrowed or blue – that led the way down that long hard road. It was we, the Conservatives. And never let it be forgotten.

    Today Britain is a leader right across the world – at the UN, in the G7, in NATO and in Europe.

    We treasure our links with the Commonwealth – so strengthened by the return of South Africa. It’s wonderful to have her back – in the Commonwealth – where she belongs.

    Our influence in Asia and the Middle East is creating new opportunities for exports and trade.

    And we for our part – 50 years on from the end of the war – will never forget those unique and lasting ties we have to the United States.

    Britain has a world identity. But we also have a special place in moulding the future of Europe. You know well where I stand. In this dangerous and changing world this great alliance serves our vital national interest.

    Yes, we benefit from Europe – but we also want to shape Europe. A Europe of nation states, built on co-operation, not intervention. A Conservative Government will never let Britain lose her national identity, her eccentricities, her uniqueness that we love. A nation state is what we are – and a nation state is what we shall remain.

    And there’s another side to our nation. We love our traditions of sport, the arts, and our national heritage. But always in the past it was difficult for those causes to compete with the great claims on national resources like health, education and defence. That’s why I set up the national lottery – to provide more resources for these causes than they’ve ever had before. A little flutter. A chance to dream. And real benefit for the country.

    Mr Chairman, I care about the integrity of our country at home as passionately as I do for its interest abroad. So that is why we’ll work to expose the fantastic folly of Labour’s plans for a tax-raising Parliament in Scotland. Those ill thought out ideas would take us towards the break-up of the most successful partnership in our history.

    It would destroy jobs in Scotland, saddle all Scots with a Tartan Tax and damage our influence abroad. The nation we believe in is a United Kingdom – not half or a third or a quarter of one. We will continue to fight Labour on this, tooth and nail.

    Mr Chairman, there is another part of our United Kingdom that is particularly close to my heart. I will continue day and night to do what I judge to be right to bring long-term peace to the brave people of Northern Ireland.

    Mr Chairman, we have much to be proud of, we Conservatives. But we have much more still to achieve. Today I have shared with you just a few of the new ideas on which we are working. The work of government moves on – and, as it does, we are shaping the next phase of Conservatism.

    We have to remind people that the essential things we stand for are, as always, the things they believe in too.

    The pillars of Conservatism are as strong as ever:

    – to deliver a strong economy and competitive industry, built on a genuine belief in private enterprise – that is the basis for future prosperity and security;

    – to create a society where individual initiative, hard work, and thrift are recognised and rewarded. An open door society in which ever more people enjoy the right to own and the power to choose;

    – to maintain order and decency, respect for self and respect for others, reinforced by lasting respect for the law;

    – to ensure that Britain has the best quality public services – the best schools, the best hospitals – that British skill can create;

    – and finally, to ensure that Britain has a Government that will keep our country secure abroad and safe at home, a Government which puts the long-term interest of our nation first.

    Mr Chairman, those are the things we stand for. The things we are working for. They are why Britain needs a Conservative Government to lead this country into the next millennium.

    Yes, we have a tough fight on our hands. But I have never run away from any fight in my life. And this is one more battle that, with your help, I intend to win.

  • Mr Major’s Speech to Conservative Central Council – 26 March 1994

    Below is the text of Mr Major’s speech to Conservative Central Council, held at Plymouth Pavilions in Plymouth on Saturday 26th March 1994.

    PRIME MINISTER:

    The First Three Years

    Someone once wrote of me that, when faced with a problem, I would take a piece of paper – draw a line down the middle – on one side I’d list the problems and on the other the objectives.

    That’s true. It’s an old habit.

    The other day I was looking for a note I wrote on the day I became Prime Minister. On the left hand side, under “problems”, I had written:

    Inflation

    Interest rates

    Unemployment

    November 1990. Inflation was almost 11 per cent. Interest rates were stuck at 14 per cent. And unemployment was rising fast.

    That day – three and a half years ago – they were our biggest problems.

    Today?

    Unemployment: down by 220,000 in just over a year. That’s a city about the size of Plymouth back in work.

    Interest rates are at their lowest for over 20 years.

    Inflation has been under three per cent for over a year – we haven’t seen that for a quarter of a century.

    Taken together, our present economic position offers tremendous opportunities for the years ahead.

    If I’d said in 1990 that we’d achieve those objectives so comprehensively in just three years, people would have said that I simply didn’t understand the extent of Britain’s problems.

    ‘He’s new,’ they’d have said, ‘he’ll soon grow out of it.’

    But I haven’t grown out of it. Britain has.

    And now exports are up, retail sales are up, productivity is up. Our economy is presently growing faster than any other leading European country – and that is expected to continue. So it’s time to start writing Britain up – and stop writing Britain off.

    No-one else will get that message across. We must do it. So we must junk the jargon and put our case across in straightforward terms that everyone can understand.

    Changing lives: schools

    Take grant-maintained schools. You’ve all read the Central Office literature.

    It’s very good literature. It gives all the information you need. It tells you we now have nearly 900 GM schools. But it doesn’t make the policy live. Doesn’t tell people what being grant-maintained really means.

    These are local schools, funded by government. Voted for by local parents, run by local people – for local children.

    And there are now over half a million children in them.

    ‘Trust the people’ is an old Conservative maxim. And that is exactly what we’re doing. Shifting power from Whitehall and from Town Hall – and back to local communities.

    Our opponents seem uncomfortable with people having more choice. They don’t trust them with it. Where we decentralise they demoralise.

    Well, I know who I admire. Not the Labour and Liberal education authorities who’ve tried to stand in the way of these local schools. But the Governors, parents and teachers who, in the teeth of sometimes bitter opposition, have had the courage and the vision to create them.

    Changing lives: hospitals

    And just look at this, a Liberal leaflet dealing with another policy where we are taking power from the centre and giving it to the people – health.

    Do any of you remember the Kincardine by-election? I do.

    The local hospital wanted to become self-governing within the NHS. But the Liberals wanted people to think the hospital was leaving the Health Service.

    So they said the Trust was a dangerous first step towards privatisation. Simply untrue.

    People were worried. And they voted Liberal in the by-election. But the Trust went ahead. And what happened? Well, I’ll tell you what didn’t happen – privatisation didn’t happen.

    And I tell you what else didn’t happen. Something that’s owed to people in that part of Scotland and to that hospital – an apology from the Liberal Party.

    Since then that self-governing hospital – freed from Health Service bureaucracy – has treated a record number of patients.

    Waiting times and lists are down. And it has new services it never had before.

    And, at the General Election, the seat came back home to the Conservatives.

    But, what happened in Kincardine has happened right across the Health Service.

    Since the reforms we are now treating 1,000,000 more patients a year than we did before. One million more. Don’t just glide over that. Behind every one of that million lies a personal story of care given and hope revived.

    So don’t worry about partisan criticism. It is in the nature of politics at the moment. It will pass. And time will root out the truth.

    And the truth is that a Labour Government may have set up the Health Service. But it’s Conservative Governments that have built it up.

    Changing lives: public service

    We are sweeping out the cobwebs of the public sector. Sometimes what we find is uncomfortable. But we’re right to expose poor service – so we can improve it.

    That is the aim of the Citizen’s Charter. It’s a ten-year programme to transform the quality of public services.

    That’s why every one of the 24,000 schools in the land is being inspected in just four years. Under the old system it would have taken 200 years to inspect just the primary schools. Now reports are sent out on every child. Exam results – and truancy tables – are published for all to see.

    Every hospital in the land is setting times for appointments. We have reduced the time people wait for hip, knee and eye operations. Three out of every four people are now treated within three months.

    And those in genuine need of key benefits have seen the time taken to deal with their claims cut by a third.

    These are real changes improving real lives.

    I belong to the school of thought that believes that people should get as good a service in the public sector as if they’d gone to the private sector and paid cash on the nail. And we are determined they will.

    Looking forward

    These are some of the things that have been achieved in the last three years. It’s time to lift our heads above the parapet and say so.

    We have to look to the future. So let us travel forward for a moment.

    And then look back from – let us say – spring 1997. I pick that date at random, of course.

    By then we will have had 48 months of steady economic growth. More new companies up and running. More people back in work. More families better off.

    Why? Because we’ve got the fundamentals of the economy right today.

    In 1997 we’ll see British industry manufacturing more. Selling more. Exporting more. Proving that British firms can make at home and sell abroad.

    Why? Because British companies are now more competitive than anywhere else in Europe. And they’ll stay that way, so long as we keep the Social Chapter at bay.

    We’ll see more people owning their own homes. More people living in decent housing, not anonymous tower blocks.

    Why? Because we’ll press ahead with the Right to Buy and private renting, and we’re going back to housing on a human scale.

    We’ll see more children in nursery education. New apprenticeships. And more young people going on to colleges and universities.

    Why? Because we’re not just interested in raising standards in the schools. We want better education for all – for life and through life.

    We’ll see more being spent on the arts, on charity, on sport. And we’ll see more people taking part in them.

    Why? Because we’ll have a national lottery, raising billions of pounds for good causes and the national heritage.

    And I also hope we’ll see more team sport back in our schools. I have no time for those Left-wing ideologues who oppose competitive sport.

    Put children together and what do you see. They run. They jump. They fight. They compete. It is their natural instinct. We don’t help them by hiding that away from them. Life can be tough. They need to know victory and defeat. And the sooner they learn it, the better equipped they will be for life.

    These are some of the things there’ll be more of three years from now.

    But also let me tell you what there’ll be less of.

    There will be fewer people committing Social Security fraud – because we are bringing in modern technology to beat the cheats.

    I know the British instinct. We’re always ready to help someone in genuine need. But there’s a counterpoint to that – and it’s a real sense of anger against people who cheat the system and take advantage of others, often poorer than themselves except in those qualities of decency and honesty that make this country what it is.

    There’ll be fewer squatters on private property. The Criminal Justice Bill means trespassers really will be prosecuted, and not before time.

    There’ll be fewer young criminals on the loose creating mayhem. There’ll be secure homes for them and safer streets for the public.

    There’ll be fewer offenders getting away with just a caution. There should be fewer people committing offences while out on bail, because if they do, they can be certain that the courts can come down on them hard.

    And especially down here in the West Country, decent hard-working people are fed up with people invading their property and destroying their crops. In future, if these New Age travellers drive in, the police will have powers to drive them out.

    So much of what I’ve described is just plain commonsense, building on old principles. Marking out a clear line between right and wrong.That’s what I mean by going back to basics. And I’m certain of this. Britain needs more of those basics, not less. And I don’t think there’s anyone here today who wouldn’t agree with that.

    Many of you here are facing local elections in the weeks ahead – some against Labour, some against the Liberals.

    But whoever your opponent is, the first thing to do is to take pride in your own record.

    Ever since the birth of the modern Conservative Party our local councillors have been one of our greatest strengths.

    Last month at our Local Government Conference in London we set out the policies on which we’ll be standing.

    Higher standards in schools. More say for the public. A tough line on crime.

    And above all, keeping the Council Tax low. Here’s one figure to take out with you and say day after day after day. Conservative councils cost you £131 less than Labour ones. £131. Knock that home.

    Wherever you go tell them. Conservative councils cost you less. Labour councils just cost you.

    Let me just say a word or two about the sheer incompetence of some of those Labour councils.

    Last year John Smith spoke of his concern about growing cynicism in politics. About the need for standards of integrity and honour. And about politics being a moral activity.

    Let me break with the adversarial nature of British politics. I agree with Mr Smith about that. But Mr Smith, you must be consistent.

    It’s not possible to talk about standards of integrity and honour if senior members of the Labour Party condemn people before an enquiry has reported.

    You can’t have standards of integrity and honour if they make false allegations and never retract. If they charge impartial public servants with political bias.

    By all means let’s maintain those high standards. But let us do it right across the board. And let that include Labour councils.

    Let Mr Smith condemn councils like Lambeth.

    I wonder if any of you saw the report about how much it cost to get two gas fires fitted in Lambeth? In the real world it costs £500. But what did it say it cost in Lambeth?

    £2000?

    £5000?

    £25,000?

    No. In Lambeth, it said that two gas fires cost the taxpayer £71,000. That’s 140 times the usual price. It’s scarcely believable – but I fear it’s true.

    And let’s not stop there.

    Take Derbyshire. Where did the Chairman of the Finance Committee have his office? In his prison cell.

    He’d been jailed for fraud. But he still went on getting his allowances and running the council’s finances. Nothing seems to be barred in the modern Labour Party.

    Local elections: Liberals

    I don’t want to waste much time on Liberal councils, though come to think of it waste would be a good place to start.

    But here in Plymouth, just a stone’s throw from Devonport, let’s take a cool sceptical look about Liberal claims for the West Country. Down here they said that Devonport should get the Trident contract. Up in Scotland they said Rosyth should get it.

    When it came to the crunch, they backed Rosyth. When put to the test the Liberals put Devonport last. That tells you everything you need to know about Liberal concern for the West country.

    At council level Liberal and Labour work together. The only time they compete is about who can charge the taxpayer more.

    Liberal councils are asking £67 extra on average on your Council Tax bill. Liberal Richmond has had the biggest rise in London – almost four times the rate of inflation.

    Liberal-led Hampshire has had the biggest rise in the Shires – more than five times the rate of inflation.

    If you want high standards of service and good value for money in local government, Conservative councils win hands down.

    Let everyone remember that on May 5th.

    European elections

    In the last week of the General Election, when we were way behind in the polls, I spoke out about the Union between Britain and Scotland.

    Some people thought I’d gone mad.

    But it was the right thing to do.

    Many of you will remember the long, bruising debates about Maastricht. It was not easy to get it through.

    But it was the right thing to do.

    Now, we are engaged in difficult negotiations with our partners in Europe. We are under furious assault from some quarters on both sides of the channel.

    But preserving British interests is the right thing to do.

    These negotiations are difficult. Points at issue are important and complex.

    But they are not insoluble. It is quite possible to get an agreement that secures our interests without damaging the concerns of our partners. That is what negotiation in Europe is about.

    I hope we can succeed, because enlargement of the Community is an important prize.

    Unfortunately as so often happens with the European debate, the complexities of the issue have been lost.

    It is cheap and easy to say that our position has nothing to do with principle and everything to do with Party management.

    But it is untrue.

    And isn’t it absurd that whenever the British Government takes a stand upon a legitimate interest we are parodied as being anti-European?

    No one thinks that of the French, the Germans or the Spanish when they take a stand in their interests. Nor should they, because every country in Europe fights its own corner very hard.

    Frankly, those people who comment in this way should just grow up and learn what the European debate is really about.

    We fight hard for our vision of Europe because we want Europe to succeed. Being a good European doesn’t mean you sign up to every dot and comma that our partners propose.

    It does mean we use our own judgement about the long-term interests of the Community. Because our national interests, our economic interests, our jobs, our livelihoods are engaged in Europe as never before.

    Over half of all our exports go there. To a huge single market right on our doorstep that Conservative Britain helped to create.

    Thousands of British companies, large and small, trade with Europe and provide huge numbers of jobs. And it is in the homes that their workers go back to at the end of the day that Britain’s interests in Europe are felt.

    And there is one other priceless legacy of our partnership in Europe. And that has been a Europe free of war.

    Fifty years ago a huge armada of ships and men gathered on the South coast to liberate the Continent. To end a war which had ravaged Europe. In June we will remember those veterans and thank them.

    Because of them, we have had an unparalleled prize. Fifty years of peace in Western Europe. Do you know when Europe last enjoyed 50 years of uninterrupted peace? If I tell you that the Cabinet then had names like Trajan, Hadrian and Marcus Aurelius, you get the idea. 1800 years.

    Today, our interests lie in being part of a Europe that sustains that peace. And keeps peace elsewhere.

    A week ago I was in Bosnia on the borders of the European Union.

    I visited Gorniy Vakuf, Vitez, Bugojno and Sarajevo and saw British troops helping deliver a new peace.

    In Gorniy Vakuf we saw villagers return to their shattered homes, carrying furniture on handcarts and children returning to play on the streets for the first time for months.

    In Sarajevo we saw a city return to life after months of nightmare and British troops dominating the trouble spots.

    Aid convoys often now travel unmolested and unescorted as troops corral weapons, man checkpoints, and keep former combatants apart.

    I’ve seen the British Army operate in many parts of the world. But I can say to you with perfect conviction that I have never been prouder of the British Army than I was last week.

    This was Britain in the heart of Europe.

    So we are firmly a part of Europe and let us conduct the debate on that basis. The decision in June is about how we shape that Europe. It is not Europe right or wrong. It is Europe Right or Left.

    And the distinction between those positions is very sharp. The policies of the Labour and Liberal Parties in this country on Europe are startlingly similar.

    Between them they would impose a minimum wage. A 35 hour week. They would renegotiate our rebate. Double Community spending. And if that is not enough, they would surrender our national veto.

    And what does that mean? It means we would no longer control our foreign policy. Our defence policy. Our planning controls and much else besides.

    What kind of manifesto is that? I’ll tell you. It’s one we should publicise – North, South, East and West. There aren’t just differences between us and the other parties – there’s a yawning gulf.

    People tell me they are confused as to where John Smith stands on Europe. So let me help you.

    In 1971 Labour opposed Europe, but John Smith voted for it.

    The following year, although he still said he was for it, he voted against. And he was against Europe through most of the 1980s.

    In 1992, John Smith became Labour Leader. Labour was now officially in favour of Europe, but Mr Smith told his Party to abstain.

    But now it’s 1994. And whatever Europe wants is good enough for him. He has abdicated independent judgement.

    So I hope you now understand where John Smith stands on Europe. And if you do, will you write it down on a postcard and send it to him. I’m sure he’ll be extremely grateful.

    If you know any Conservatives who are saying: ‘These elections don’t matter’, or ‘I don’t see why I should help’, just tell them, too.

    They do matter. And – if they care about Britain – they should help. For if they sit at home, others won’t. And people who believe – passionately – that we should be submerged in a different kind of European state will be out there day in, day out, knocking on doors, distributing leaflets.

    If in the next couple of months you look out of your window and you see people with red or orange rosettes going up and down your street campaigning, just remember this.

    They too, have a view about Europe. But it’s not your view, it’s not mine. And it’s not the view of the people of this country.

    We have a vision – one that’s right for this country and right for Europe. And we will pursue that vision best with the help of more Conservative MEPs back in the European Parliament.

    Peroration

    I wasn’t born a Conservative. I became one. By choice and by conviction.

    I don’t believe a great country is built by Government or planned from the centre.

    Governments can open doors, remove obstacles, point the way.

    But it’s people down the ages who have made our country what it is. Millions of people who never make the headlines – working together to better themselves and make a better future for their children.

    I believe that the people who made Britain – if only they have the confidence – can help to make Europe too.

    We’re an old Party. Were an old country. We have values and experience that make us equal to any challenge.

    In our Party we don’t walk away from difficulties. We go out there to meet them, solve them and turn them into success. That’s what we’ve always done. And that’s what we will do again.

  • Mr Major’s Speech to 1993 Conservative Central Council – 6 March 1993

    Below is the text of Mr Major’s speech to the 1993 Conservative Central Council meeting, held in Harrogate on 6th March 1993.

    PRIME MINISTER:

    Yesterday this Conference paid its tribute to Nick Ridley.

    He was an original. A one-off. And whatever he did he faced the world square on and never once flinched.

    The Commons was the poorer when he left it. And the Party is the poorer for his loss.

    Mr Chairman, in the last two years events have thrown at this country everything they could.

    Abroad – we’ve had the Gulf War, the Yugoslav war, a world recession that gets worse abroad as it gets better here. There have been plans from Europe that we’ve had to water down or reject. At home we have had our share of world recession, a difficult general election, and conflicts on Europe that strike deep at the instincts of many in our Party.

    Mr Chairman, on these issues it’s right that we should have vigorous debate. When people feel strongly they should express their views. Argue their case. Fight their corner.

    But once we have taken our decisions on how to proceed, then I believe we should all support those decisions. The British people put us back in power to carry on with the full range of our policies. They gave us five years to beat inflation, create growth and jobs, improve choice, fight crime and maintain the unity of the United Kingdom.

    Mr Chairman, that is what I want to see this Party and this Government do. And I want to see us do it now – and I want to see us do it together. It is in difficult times like these that the Conservative Party most needs to be united – and to stay united.

    At the last election we had one of the biggest leads in votes ever recorded. But only a 21 seat majority – now, sadly, for the moment only 20. So these are difficult days. We no longer have a cushion of 100 seats, and those who want us to be successful know what that means. Let me say it bluntly – disunity is a luxury we cannot afford.

    Mr Chairman, none of us should forget the scale of the responsibility placed upon us. On April 9th last year, 14 1/4 million people turned to us – people of all ages, all walks of life, from all corners of Britain. Every one different. Each with their own personal hopes and fears. They all trusted us with the hard job that lay ahead.

    We must live up to that trust. That does not mean responding to every short-term whim. It does not mean avoiding difficult decisions. It does mean holding fast to the long-term course that will bring us prosperity, growth, and jobs, even in the teeth of short-term difficulties.

    Those short-term problems have often caught the headlines. But they have not prevented progress towards our long-term objectives. So let me put it all in perspective. Let me remind you of what we have done in the last eleven months – smack in the middle of a world recession.

    I’ll start with the Health Service. Remember what Labour said about health. They said if we won it would be the end of the Health Service. One year on, we have more National Health Service Trust hospitals and more GP fundholders providing better care to more patients than ever before.

    The end of the Health Service? One year on, it’s not the NHS that’s falling apart; it is Labour’s scares that have fallen apart. Remember that truly disgraceful election broadcast? That was the one in which Robin Cook predicted the end of the NHS. Well today the Health Service is moving on – and Robin Cook has been moved on. Out on his Jennifer’s ear – and deservedly so.

    As hospitals have become self-governing – running their own affairs – so have schools. Over 500 have chosen the new freedom to become Grant Maintained. They have moved out of the hands of local authorities and into the care of governors and parents.

    And we’re promoting subject teaching in primary schools – so much more important than vague topic work and generalised themes. So it’s maths, geography, science and history lessons. And putting emphasis right from the start on standard English and on the 3Rs.

    That, Mr Chairman, is the right Tory agenda – and we have put it in place in the first year. We’re supporting good teachers and putting the spotlight on the bad. Publishing the exam results of every school.

    Mr Chairman, those results should never have been hidden in the first place. Now we’ve brought them into the open. And they will never be hidden again.

    And, one more thing, Mr Chairman. When we talk of publishing the facts, I must say this to those teacher unions that are threatening to boycott tests – you are wrong. Life is a test. You do pupils no good by hiding them from reality.

    To teach children what they need to know, we must find out what they don’t know. Tests are an essential part of good schooling. Tests are here to stay. And I hope the teacher union leaders get that message loud and clear from this Conference. And, before I leave education, here’s something for the history books.

    By 1996 nearly a quarter of a million extra students will be in college – the biggest expansion ever. And when they are there they won’t have to join the activities of the National Union of Students – because we are ending the NUS closed shop.

    That’s the right Tory agenda – and all in the first year. And it is not only the NUS monopoly that is going – remember Neddy, that hangover from the 1960s, that corporatist relic?

    Well, that’s gone, too. Unlamented. We have scrapped it. And not before time. We are giving new freedoms to members of Trades Unions. And new powers for every individual to act in court to stop wildcat strikes. All part of the right Tory agenda – and in hand in the first year.

    And the Tory programme to promote ownership is rolling forward, too. We have introduced a new incentive for personal pensions. One that will help millions enjoy their retirement in comfort and security.

    In housing, we are back on course for the home-owning democracy. We have a new scheme to help tenants become homeowners by treating rents as mortgage payments. We’re giving leaseholders the right to buy their freeholds. And later this spring Michael Howard and his team will launch a new campaign to spread the Right to Buy.

    That’s the right Tory agenda – this Government’s agenda. Never mind the news – that’s the reality.

    All that sounds like a full menu for a full Parliament. Yet all I have done is to give you a selection of starters. Your starters for 5, 10, 20 years, years in which we will indeed – build a stronger and better Britain.

    Fine words, you say. But fine words butter no parsnips. What about jobs? I know that the main thing so many people seek above all is a worthwhile job. That is why, from April, we will have in place the most comprehensive package to help people back to work that we have ever seen in Britain: youth training, Training for Work, Restart, Job interview guarantees, business start up schemes. Schemes that will help up to 1 1/2 million of our fellow citizens keep in touch with the world of work.

    And those schemes all have one thing in common. Every one was opposed by the Labour Party. How can they defend that? They call for help for unemployed people and then vote against it.

    We want our training schemes to lead to full-time jobs. It’s permanent jobs that people want. The only way to get people permanently back to work is to help the economy grow. To improve our skills. To promote our exports. To widen our manufacturing base. And to make it worthwhile to start new companies.

    That’s the road back to jobs. Permanent jobs. Jobs with prospects. And that’s the road we are travelling. The outlook for our economy is good. Interest rates down. Inflation down. Strikes down. Manufacturing productivity up. Retail sales up. Exports up. That’s what’s happening. And that’s the way back to work for Britain. The only way.

    The prospects for the Nineties are good. It’s been slow, frustratingly slow. But we are on our way. And don’t just take it from me. Over the next two years Britain is forecast to have the highest rate of growth in Western Europe.

    If we have confidence in ourselves others will have confidence in us. And when confidence grows jobs must follow. Some people still haven’t quite grasped the progress we’ve made.

    So let me put this way. 1954 – that’s 39 years ago, the year Roger Bannister ran the 4 minute mile – that was the last time the January inflation rate fell to 1.7%.

    And 1956 – 37 years ago, the year Jim Laker took 10 Australian wickets for 88 at the Oval and, no, drat it, I wasn’t there! – that was the last time mortgage rates for first time buyers were as low as they are, now.

    So, for goodness sake, let’s not belittle what we’ve done. Let’s not run our prospects down. Let’s leave that to the Labour Party. Day after day they attack us for ‘talking the economy up’. What a crime. What a dreadful thing to do. Trying to instill confidence.

    Well, it’s about time we got after them for talking the economy down. When did you last hear John Smith say a good word about Britain?

    And another thing, is there anyone here who’s ever seen Gordon Brown smile? No one. I thought not. Is there anyone anywhere who’s ever seen Gordon Brown smile? Is there anyone who wants to see Gordon Brown smile? And by the way, has anyone yet seen Gerald?

    Mr Chairman, there’s something else that is absolutely crucial to business confidence – the certainty that Britain will help determine policy in Europe, and not be dragged along behind a policy made by others. We should remember what we have achieved for Britain in Europe this year. We have every right to be proud of it.

    We have completed the biggest free trade area the world has ever seen. We have reformed the Common Agricultural Policy after years of squabbling. We have put a ceiling on EC spending right until the end of the century. We have opened up the Community to new members. And we are changing the course of Europe – away from centralism and returning powers to member states.

    That is the classic British agenda for Europe. It is not the federalist agenda. On crucial issues we are making sure the final say sits where it should be – right here in Britain. So let’s not fear the future in Europe. Let’s go out and shape the future of Europe. Shape a market of 340 million, where businesses can compete, export and invest wherever they like – where future generations will have opportunities we never dreamed of to work and to travel.

    And we must shape a wider Europe. That’s what we decided at Edinburgh – to bring in new member nations, first from Scandinavia and later from central Europe. And we won agreement – against all expectations – that our old friends, the Poles, the Hungarians, and the Czechs would eventually join us.

    Do you remember how as the Iron Curtain fell we welcomed them to our Party Conference two years ago? Well, we are still working on their side. And now – in time – we look forward to them joining the European Community, too – as a result of our influence.

    The present Community is but a fragment of Europe. Our long- term vision is a Europe without trade barriers, a vast continent of free democracies, from the Urals to the Atlantic and from the Baltic to the Mediterranean.

    A Europe full of trade and free of war. We won’t achieve that speedily – but isn’t that what we should work for for future generations? So let me tell you what’s at stake. I know the concerns and passions aroused by arguments over our future in Europe. I see them in the House of Commons whenever we debate the Treaty of Maastricht.

    I understand the instincts and the patriotic feelings that motivate many in our Party who have doubts about the Treaty. I understand, and share, their pride in Britain’s great past. But we have to build a great future. So let me tell you, clearly and frankly, that I believe the fears of those who resist our European policy are mistaken.

    Mistaken because they underestimate what we have achieved in our negotiations in Europe.

    Mistaken because they have failed to focus on our wider vision of Europe.

    Mistaken because if we step aside from what we have agreed there would be an enormous economic price to pay.

    There would be an immediate blow to economic recovery. International investors, who have poured money into Britain, £100,000 million in the last five years, would turn their backs on us.

    Those investors want access to the European market. And if we sidelined ourselves they would no longer be certain that that would be the case. That is why the price of standing aside from the agreement we freely made would be heavy. As Douglas Hurd told you yesterday, it would be £50 billion off our national production over the next five years. I wonder how many jobs that would cost?

    And then there is that Social Chapter – another threat to jobs. Surely no-one in this Party – for any reason – would give houseroom to that. Where we want to be is on the inside track to prosperity, and outside the grasp of bureaucracy and socialism. Inside Europe and outside the Social Chapter.

    I know our Party. I cannot believe that anyone, when they have considered all the facts, could want to let slip those opportunities before us.

    Let me tell you what I believe. To do so would be to take a conscious decision to become irrelevant in Europe. That would be a decision not only for our time, but for our children’s also. It would be the surest possible way to impoverish our country and damage our standing in the world – almost beyond repair.

    So let us put aside the fears and hesitations that hold our Party back. We may have our differences. But they are as nothing to the things that unite us.

    So let us take the chance we have today – to mould Europe in our own image. Don’t let us shirk that challenge. In a thousand years of history we never have. And we must not now.

    Mr Chairman, I want British industry to win not just in Europe, but around the world. I want a different attitude to industry at every level in this country. I want people to see that making things matters. I want more that matters to be made in Britain.

    Our exporters need to know that the Government supports them. And where we can help to open doors and free up markets we will always do so. That’s why in the Autumn Statement we committed £700 million extra to help British companies win new orders. And when our businessmen travel abroad I expect all our embassies to work with them. Cultural exchanges are fine – but I want export deals as well.

    Mr Chairman, exports are booming. Leaving the factories faster than journalists leaving the Daily Mirror. Mirror, mirror, on the wall – are there any journalists left there at all? In the battle for exports I want Government out there in the field foursquare behind our businesses.

    A few weeks ago, I spent the morning in India, lunched in the desert in Oman, and had dinner in a palace in Saudi Arabia. And that day, as a result of months of effort by business and Government working together, we won orders for British goods worth billions and safeguarded thousands of jobs. These days there are no easy exports. The world is too competitive for that. More competitive than ever before.

    Those countries that once were captive markets are now manufacturing themselves or challenging us as rivals. The countries on the Pacific Rim have developed massive industries of their own. China is set to become a huge manufacturing power in the century to come. Against that background, we need to help British companies carve out a bigger place for Britain. But before we export, we have to manufacture. And we have to manufacture quality.

    That’s why we need to build up craft skills and practical training in every part of Britain. End once and for all that senseless prejudice against the best of our brains going into commerce and industry. That prejudice is damaging – and we can no longer accept it.

    Mr Chairman, by helping business I don’t mean artificial subsidies to industries. I mean setting the right economic structure for business. I mean pursuing the right policies for business. I mean having the right curriculum in our schools. I mean reforming vocational training. I mean lifting burdens from the back of businesses.

    Of course, we need some regulations. But there are people in Brussels, in local councils and, yes, in Whitehall who seem to have a mania to hold back the future in a mesh of pettifogging detail.

    So I have told every Department of State: scrap unnecessary regulation. It’s a simple message. Red tape means lost jobs. And that doesn’t only apply to large companies like ICI. It applies to the smallest businesses and local services too.

    You know what I mean. Health and safety enthusiasts bent on eliminating every conceivable – and inconceivable – risk. Local councils badgering good nursery schools when they’d be better employed helping them.

    The food safety people who tell us that what we’ve been eating for generations will certainly kill us if we don’t stop instantly. Well we’ll certainly die a good deal sooner if we do stop eating instantly. Mr Chairman, it’s all gone way over the top. Well, I’d rather it went in the bin.

    Isn’t it barmy? Would Drake have been in time to meet the Armada, and would Nelson have made Trafalgar, if an inspector had been on hand to say ‘Hold everything – we haven’t checked the ship’s biscuits!”

    Mr Chairman, I said earlier that one of the reasons we were elected was to keep up the fight against crime. Vandalism; burglary; car theft. Crimes against property; crimes of violence; crimes involving drugs.

    The fear of crime lies deep in the instincts of law-abiding people. They find it hard to understand how others move outside the law, careless of the interests of their neighbours, preying on the property of others, even threatening their lives. I said last week that we need to understand less and to condemn a little more. That was not a simple cry for retribution.

    My point was this. Unless society sets rules and standards and enforces them, we cannot be surprised if others flout them. It’s true we mustn’t exaggerate the problem. Compared to many others in the world, Britain is still a safe country.

    But those who point to that and say ‘do nothing’ are wrong. I say to those people: even if the problem here is smaller, it’s still far too big. And every single victim of crime in this country will agree with that.

    That’s why this Government has done so much to step up crime prevention and crack down on crime. There are too many violent offences – that’s why we have increased penalties against them, especially for those thugs who go out carrying firearms.

    There is too much drug dealing – that’s why we’ve taken powers to confiscate the assets of those who sell drugs and wreck the lives of young people. There have been too many lenient sentences – that’s why we’ve given the Attorney General power to refer sentences to the Court of Appeal. And one final example – it is intolerable that some offenders charged with a crime go out and commit another while they’re on bail. I want to see those further offences reflected in the sentences they receive.

    Mr Chairman, there can be no doubt about where this Party stands in the fight against crime. And no doubt about the support we have given to those who fight it. We have given our police forces better pay and more resources than any Government in history. Now we must help them get even better results in everything they do. That is why we are now reviewing the effectiveness and the organisation of British police. I want our police to the most modern and the most efficient crime-fighting force in the world.

    Mr Chairman, the issue of crime runs deep. To catch and to punish is to deter. But we want to prevent crime too. So we must go to the roots of why some young people do what they do. Too many children have been denied the proper guidance they need in their own homes and schools. Of course, the authority of the family comes in here.

    And, yes, the churches – they may have a legitimate role to criticise, but they certainly have a role to play. And there’s another factor that goes right home in every sense. And that’s too much violence in videos and on television. What we watch is the single biggest influence on many people’s thinking.

    We’re an open society. We can’t censor television. But we can say to parents – control what your children watch. And we can say to those who make and distribute films and videos – think whether a relentless diet of violence won’t have a serious effect on the young. And we can say to television programmers – don’t just be careful when you show it, be careful what you show.

    Mr Chairman, Government alone cannot change behaviour. Concepts of right and wrong are something for all of us. But there are some things Government can do – and we will.

    First, truancy. It is stark staring obvious to me that if children are staying out of school, they are not learning what they should be and they are probably learning what they shouldn’t. For too long the facts on truancy have been hidden by a conspiracy of silence. So from this autumn in our new league tables we will make all schools publish openly their levels of attendance.

    We will find out where the problem is worst. We’ll target it and tackle it. I want our children in class. Not in trouble. And, Mr Chairman, we are taking another step. This morning Ken Clarke told you about his new proposals to set up secure centres for that hard core of youngsters who go on offending and reoffending, devoid, it seems, of any sense of fear or guilt about what they do.

    Some say we shouldn’t respond. They say it’s a relatively minor concern. I don’t agree. I say that not to respond would be a double dereliction of duty. A dereliction of duty to the public at large. And, worse, a dereliction to those children. Because we let children down if we don’t set boundaries and enforce them. For their own good and for the good of their communities we must take those persistent young offenders off the streets.

    It is a clear-cut idea, carefully worked up over these last few months, targeted directly at an obvious gap in the law. How strange – but how very revealing – that in a matter of minutes it was condemned out of hand by the new model Labour Party. When I heard that, it sounded just like the old unreconstructed Labour Party to me.

    When the test came they failed it – so let’s give them another chance. We’ll set them another test. Eleven times in all Labour have voted against the Prevention of Terrorism Act. I find that unbelievable.

    And so, I suspect, do the people in the battle against terrorism who are putting their lives on the line to protect the lives of others. Terrorism is the biggest crime of all. So for Labour let it be the biggest test of all. So no hedging, no weaving, no messing about. Let them vote with us next week – or pipe down about crime.

    Mr Chairman, I’ve reminded you of some of the things we have done in these last few months – and set out some of our plans for the future. As always this Party is a reforming Party. And as a nation we need to reform. Because we live in a rapidly changing world. Change can be frightening. We must manage it carefully. Nurture it to our national advantage. Our watchword is – to hold on to the best of the past and to create the best for the future.

    Mr Chairman, last March it was at this Central Council that we launched the General Election campaign – the election that no-one thought we could win. We took our message to every part of our country. It was the roughest, toughest campaign for years. But we won it.

    And how did we win? By sticking to our principles. By keeping our nerve. By standing together. And, above all, by staying together. United. That’s how we won – and that’s a lesson we must never forget.

  • Mr Major’s 1992 Conservative Central Council Speech – 14 March 1992

    Below is the text of Mr Major’s speech to the 1992 Conservative Central Council meeting, held at Torquay on March 14th 1992.

    PRIME MINISTER:

    The phoney war is over. The Battle of Britain has begun.

    That battle is a battle we’re going to win.

    Win on our record.

    Win on our policies.

    Win on our values.

    Win on merit – because we have the vision, the ideas, and the team to build Britain in the ‘90s. To make the future of our country as great as its past.

    I’m not interested in standing still. I want to lead this country forward. To build on what we’ve achieved. To continue to change the face of Britain. And enhance still further its reputation and influence abroad.

    Be proud of what we achieved in the ‘80s. The work, the growth, and the success of those years is the foundation of an even better future. So that when, in generations to come, people look back, they will say: ‘This was when the battle was won. This was when the British people came truly into their own. This was when socialism crumbled away and was seen off forever.’

    After 16 months as Prime Minister, the immediate tasks I set myself and my colleagues have been completed – winning the Gulf War, bringing inflation down, putting the council tax safely in place, giving a new face to public service with the Citizen’s Charter, safeguarding the interests of Britain at Maastricht, and setting out in Tuesday’s Budget our strategy for recovery and growth.

    That is now done. Britain is poised to come out of recession. All that is needed now is the confidence that will come from a clear Conservative victory.

    And so now is the time to seek a new mandate from the British people. I believe they will share my vision, my ambitions for our future.

    Let me tell you how I see that future.

    I want to bring into being a different kind of country. Bury for ever old divisions in Britain – between North and South, blue collar and white collar, polytechnic and university. They’re old style. Old hat. And we need to be rid of these prejudices. We want a country in which people get on because of what they are, not who they are. If you are good enough, you can’t be too young and you can’t be too old.

    For most of my lifetime, before I came into Parliament, before Margaret Thatcher changed Britain infinitely for the better, people were expected to be dependent – never, however hard they worked, never independent, never in control of their own lives or their family’s future.

    It was a world in which we were told that Governments knew best. They knew best how to spend our money. How to make our choices. They knew best who should own homes, and run businesses. They always knew better than us.

    And what happened? Town centres were bulldozed. Homes ripped down. Good schools closed. Taxes soared. Trade union barons carved out huge fiefdoms and marshalled their militants at the factory gate. Our very history was rewritten; our traditions despised. Through all that time, the time we were told that the man in Whitehall knew best, the people of Britain knew better.

    And now, all over Europe, one after the other, the Socialist dominoes have gone down. Who believes that the answer to Britain’s problems is to go back to what everyone else has cast into oblivion? Socialism was the crowning folly of our time, which at this coming Election we Conservatives will finish for good.

    A century ago Lord Randolph Churchill said ‘Trust the people.’ It is one of the oldest truths of Conservatism. That people know better than governments.

    We trusted the people. We gave them the chance. And the British people led the world – in a movement that has swept every continent.

    Would they be privatising in Latin America today, if we hadn’t first done it here?

    Would they be cutting high tax rates in India today, if we hadn’t first done it here?

    Would they be planning to bring Eastern Europe into the Community today if we hadn’t first suggested it here?

    How astounding that now in Latin America, in India, in Bulgaria, and Moscow they understand more about free markets than they do in Walworth Road.

    The Labour Party see the British people as pawns. We see them as partners. Partners in the building of Britain. With their values, through their values, commonsense everyday Conservative values, Britain’s future will be assured.

    That is why our programme for the ‘90s will be a partnership with the people. With a Government that trusts the people. A decade of trust given and trust returned.

    I promise you this.

    Wherever freedom can be extended, there we will be.

    Wherever choice can be widened, there we will be.

    Wherever wealth can be created, there we will be.

    Wherever care must be given, there we will be.

    That’s the Conservative philosophy: wealth and welfare, hand in hand.

    Our partnership with the people is already touching every aspect of our daily lives. And it is those lives that will be touched by the result of this Election – whether in city tower blocks, in lonely villages, or along quiet suburban roads.

    This crucial election is not a faraway battle fought between warring factions at Westminster. It is a battle of ideas, of ideals – about our future. It is a battle about how we live – all of us. It’s about our schools. Our workplace. Our standard of living. Our security. It’s about who controls how we live – us or the State.

    Our partnership with the people has come a long way. And we’re going to take it further.

    In education we will go back to basics and make sure they’re properly taught. Where parents want them we’ll open the way to grant-maintained schools, free of Council control. We’ll extend parental influence and choice, everywhere – because we trust the people.

    In health we’ll extend the reforms which have led to more patients being treated than ever before. Don’t be misled by Labour’s shoddy, shabby propaganda about our National Health Service. There will be more of those successful trust hospitals. More GP fundholders with power for doctors to decide on their patients’ needs. We’re giving more weight to local decisions, everywhere – because we trust the people.

    In local government we’ll open up to the public how their councils are doing, allow tenants new rights and shake up arrogant bureaucracy. And, something else, there’s a lasting affection throughout the land for many of our historic and familiar counties and cities. That’s why we’re asking the public’s views on how local government should be structured, everywhere.

    All these policies have something in common – that choices will be there wherever people want them. We’re giving power to the people, because we trust them. We’re pushing choice back to the people, because we want all of them – every single person in Britain – to have greater control over their lives and their families’ future. To be the masters, not the servants, of their personal world. That’s my Conservatism.

    To our fellow citizens I give this pledge: when the next Conservative Government has completed its work, you will feel, more than you’ve ever felt before, that Britain belongs to you, and that you have a secure place within it.

    But there is one area above all in which we trust the people. To do what they wish with the money they earn, to have and to hold – for themselves and their children – a growing piece of their country which they can call their own.

    Last Tuesday’s Budget underlined the giant gulf between the Conservatives on the one hand and Labour or Liberal on the other.

    We want low tax and personal choice; they want high tax and State choice.

    What the country decides on that great divide will affect the future of every family in Britain.

    When I became Prime Minister I said I wanted a nation at ease with itself. That means a Government that people believe is fair. To be fair, isn’t it right that those most in need should be helped most? That’s the British instinct. That’s what I believe in. And that’s what the Budget does. It has cut tax in a novel way – to help most those who earn least.

    The new 20p tax band does three things. It cuts tax for everybody. It confirms our intention, as soon as we can, to lower the basic rate to 20 per cent. But, it also gives that benefit now to four million taxpayers with the lowest incomes. In future, they’ll only pay 20 per cent, not 25 per cent.

    These are people on modest incomes. Men receiving low pay. Many married women, who perhaps work part-time. Disabled workers who are often low paid. Pensioners with modest savings. Young people starting out on their career. We’ve given them a helping hand, by cutting their tax by a fifth. Labour have voted to put it right back up to 25 per cent. They’re no longer content with taxing the rich; now they’re even after the poor.

    We knew Labour wanted massive taxes on the better-off. We knew they plotted new burdens on middle incomes. Now we know they want high tax on low pay. Unbelievable. But that’s Labour policy for you.

    John Smith said it himself. There would be no tax cuts under Labour – ever. However hard you worked, however well the country performed, the fruits of your labour would be Labour’s, not yours.

    So how would Labour support schools? By taxing teachers. Help hospitals? By taxing nurses. Beat crime? By an assault on the pay packets of the police. It’s a lunatic strategy -by prejudice out of ignorance. All founded on the bogus claim that in order to build tomorrow you need to rob today. Just remember yesterday – when Labour taxed and taxed and cut and cut – cut, let me remind you, hospital building and nurses’ pay. Labour cut the National Health Service.

    Does anyone want to go back to those days? When every Budget was a day to dread. When tax took 35p in the £ from the wages of every worker. When you even had to ask permission to take £50 abroad. But that’s the philosophy of the people who now want to be brought back to run this country. The nerve of it.

    Labour’s higher tax commitment is a mean-spirited manoeuvre. It would break the backs of businesses, hit every family and drive people out of their jobs. You will never create the permanent jobs we need by punitive taxes. High taxes mean high unemployment – permanently.

    The British people can now see clearly what we have warned them of for ages – Labour have a fatal addiction. Tax. They are high on tax. We must make sure that it’s Labour, not Britain, that this high tax habit drags down and destroys.

    Even after all this some commentators still ask – does it really matter who wins this election? Let me say this to them. The result of this Election matters as much as any we’ve known. Labour talk of time for a change. There would be change, all right. Short change.

    Short change for workers as pay packets shrank.

    Short change for pensioners as inflation surged.

    Short change for savers as taxes rose.

    Short change for homeowners as interest rates soared.

    Yes, Labour would change Britain. Short-change Britain. They would stop the revival of Britain dead in its tracks. It’s not going to happen. We’re going to stop them dead in their tracks.

    Somersault Socialism, Labour’s game of ‘look at us, no hands, we’re different now’ won’t fool anyone. Whatever mask they put on we’ll take it off and show the people it’s the same old face underneath.

    Next week we will publish the programme for the next Conservative Government. It will be a full, modern, positive programme for an independent people in an independent Britain.

    But of all the issues in this Election there are three that I want to share with you at the outset of the campaign.

    The place of Britain in the world.

    The cohesion of our country.

    And the future of the battle against inflation.

    Let me take inflation first.

    I don’t want a little bit of inflation. I don’t want a modicum of inflation. I want an end to inflation. I want to take this country back to stable prices. What a prize that would be. We all know what it means to walk into the supermarket and see that the price of a pint of milk or a loaf of bread has gone up. I want to see prices stay down. Nothing would give greater security to those on fixed incomes.

    I know the fear, the despair that inflation brings to everyday lives – the raw misery when the bills at the end of the week are bigger than the pay packet, or when the value of savings melts like snow in spring.

    Inflation is a curse. We’ve got to beat it. We’ve got to get prices stable – and do everything we can to keep them there.

    No other Party will do that but us. No other Party would even try. And that’s one giant reason why Britain needs Conservative Government.

    Next, the cohesion of Britain. That, too, is something I feel passionately about. I said in Scotland that the unity of the United Kingdom transcends the Election – and I meant it. I admire the pride of Wales. I understand the national aspirations of Scotland. I’ve been there. I’ve felt it.

    But I know this. It would be hugely damaging to go down a route that, in short term or long, could lead to the break-up of our country. I hope that everyone throughout the United Kingdom appreciates the scale of this issue.

    This is more than a Scottish concern. It matters in Gloucester as it matters in Glasgow.

    Whatever they intended, the devolution proposals put forward by Liberals and Labour alike could put us on the road to a Disunited Kingdom. They haven’t faced up to the truth – that, if devolution for Scotland came, it must inevitably call into question the whole relationship between the different parts of our Kingdom.

    Devolution is not – as some may fondly imagine – a safe option that wouldn’t, or couldn’t, lead on to separation. It would raise tax levels in Scotland and freeze out investment. It could also lead to calls in England for a fresh look at levels of finance, and demands for reduced Scottish representation at Westminster, leaving Scotland’s members with a second-tier status in the Union Parliament. If that were to happen, bitterness and conflict would be the certain result.

    And where would that bitterness and conflict end? What began as a dalliance with devolution could end as the disaster of separation. Three hundred years of achievement together. The most influential voice for good in the dangerous world of today. Undone in a single careless moment. The Conservative Party must point out the dangers of that disastrous road. We have a responsibility to history. We must stand for the union. Fight for the union. And win for the union. For if we don’t the whole of the United Kingdom – every part of it – would be the loser, and our future the poorer.

    And let me be crystal clear about another constitutional matter. Our voting system has served us well over the years. It has given us strong Government, capable of difficult decisions at difficult times. I have no intention of changing it. There is no need. Those who call for such changes should examine their motives. There will be no deals with those opportunists who stand for nothing except their own political self- interest. Who would sign up for anything, if it meant a seat at the Cabinet table. The flavour-of-the-minute politicians who’d be for night if it suited them and day if it didn’t.

    We’re not playing their game. We’re going to show up their PR campaign for the sham that it is. The Government of smoke-filled rooms. No longer the MP of your choice, but a Party appointee. Not proportional representation, but permanent representation – for a minority party in control of our affairs. ‘PR’ is no principle. ‘PR’? What does it stand for? It’s Paddy’s Roundabout. Well, we won’t be joining him for the ride.

    We stand on the threshold of a new era. Years which will be decisive not only for Britain, but the world. We have seen momentous changes in our continent.

    It is nearly 80 years since Sir Edward Grey said the lamps were going out all over Europe. That they would not be lit again in his lifetime. Well, over the last two astonishing years we’ve seen those lamps coming on once again.

    Historic nations reborn. Historic freedoms regained. Poland, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Bulgaria, the Baltics. All free again. It is the end of the age of empires. The last imperial power is gone. We have a chance in our lifetime that no previous generation has had. To unite our continent. To spread ever wider the free market principles on which the prosperity of the West is based. It is a time for vision. To lift our eyes beyond our domestic concerns. A time to open Europe up, not shut its other half out.

    That’s what we were arguing for at Maastricht. For a wider Europe, not a United States of Europe; a Europe looking outwards, not in on itself. We want progress in the European Community; but we want progress outside it as well. We were told that the Summit at Maastricht would be high noon for Britain in Europe, a big shoot-out, certain defeat. They said we couldn’t do it, we wouldn’t do it. We did it. We won the right deal for Britain. And the right deal for Europe. All of Europe. Does anyone seriously believe that would have happened if Messrs Kinnock and Kaufman had been speaking for Britain? Not on your Douglas Hurd, it wouldn’t.

    The greatest virtue of the European Community is not economic. Twice in the lifetime of our most venerable fellow citizens, conflict in Western Europe has brought the whole world to war. Now the peoples of Western Europe are bound together by the mutual self-interest of their economies and trade.

    Those bonds make it inconceivable that war between them should ever again bring the world to ruin. That is a prize more valuable even than the greater prosperity those trade links have brought.

    But we need to extend that security further. We must open the borders of the community to bring the new democratic states in the East. To extend the community until it reaches Russia itself. It may not happen in our political lifetime – but it will happen. And when it does we will have created a more secure future for our continent than it’s ever known before.

    We in Britain are in a special position to make it a reality. We have a special place in the world. We’re leaders in Europe; members of the Commonwealth; allies and friends of the United States. And, as Boris Yeltsin has said, especially trusted by the government of Russia. And with good reason. We stood by them in their hour of need during the coup last summer. And we’ll stand by them still, as they take their place once more in the family of nations.

    Does anyone think that a free Russia that has just ditched socialism would turn to a socialist Britain? The thought’s absurd. Socialism is what Eastern Europe has fought for generations to get rid of.

    In the great decisions on the future of our continent, only a Conservative Government can carry the weight that is Britain’s due.

    But there is another reason why the security of our country depends upon a Conservative Government. And that is defence.

    Whatever is needed to defend our country the next Conservative Government will do. There will be no escape clauses. No fudges. No ifs. And no buts. Just a cool-headed judgment of the resources that Britain will need. There are still great dangers. We would be naive to imagine that we could for a moment lower our guard. Keeping the peace is a full-time challenge. And it means a full-time commitment. The first duty of Government is the defence of the realm. This Conservative Government, which I am privileged to lead, will discharge that duty, whatever the pressures may prove to be.

    I give you this promise. We will stick to our principles. There will be no chopping and changing to catch the prevailing political tide. While others retain nuclear weapons, we will do so. And while the man who currently rules Iraq and his kind are plotting new capabilities, we will modernise our own. That includes building the fourth Trident submarine. We will order it. We will build it. We will arm it. And we will deploy it. Let the British people have no doubt where we stand.

    What of Labour? What is their stance? What are their plans? Mr Gerald Kaufman tells us that Labour have nothing to do with CND. Nothing? Really? That’s odd. Late last year 100 Labour Members of Parliament were still members of CND. Have they all followed their leader, and let their membership – what was the word? – ‘lapse’? Their attitude to our nuclear deterrent can be summed up in four words – ‘can’t say, won’t say’. But they must say.

    So let them tell the British public – just where do they stand on the fourth Trident that Britain’s security needs? They’ve said they would order it; they’ve said they wouldn’t order it; they’ve even said they would order it and send it to sea without any weapons. A toothless Trident. A ghost ship. A sort of underwater Flying Dutchman. Going round and round in circles for ever and never getting back to base. You never know where you are with Labour on defence.

    It’s time for them to stop the ducking and the weaving. So let’s hear it from Labour. Will you, won’t you, will you, won’t you, will you build the boat?

    The defence of Britain takes commitment. Caution. Coherence. Conviction. And none of those words begins with a K.

    These last 16 months have been an immense privilege. Much has been done.

    Reversing the invasion of Kuwait along with our allies. Throwing the barbarous dictator out. Leading the world in the safe havens initiative for the Kurds.

    We in Britain were the first to denounce the coup in Moscow, the first to recognise Russia, and the first to call for her to be admitted to the IMF.

    We were the first with a Commonwealth declaration on human rights. The first to propose a debt write-off for the poorest countries. And the first to propose the register of conventional arms sales that has now been adopted by the United Nations.

    Why does this Election matter so much? Yes, it matters because of health, education, Europe, inflation, tax, and defence. All these things.

    But more than anything it matters because it will determine the kind of country we will build for our children.

    I want ours to be a country that is confident. A country in which we can look people in the eye and know we’ve treated them fairly. A country that others will look to with renewed respect.

    I want our nation to stand proud in the world – quiet in voice, firm in action, united in resolve.

    I want Britain to be a byword in every language – for decency, for leadership, for trust, and for hope.

    I want Britain to be seen as the best – not only in our eyes, but in the eyes of others.

    First and first again – a world leader – that’s where I want us to be, and to stay. And that’s where Britain will stay – under the next Conservative Government.

  • Mr Major’s Speech to Conservative Central Council – 17 March 1989

    The text of Mr Major’s speech to Conservative Central Council, held at The Spa, in Scarborough, on Friday 17th March 1989.

    CHIEF SECRETARY TO THE TREASURY:

    Inflation

    At the beginning of this debate Michael Normington admirably moved a Motion calling on the Government to bring down inflation and not to be deflected by short term pressure over interest rates or the balance of trade. Both of these matters are important of course but Michael was surely right to single out inflation as the principal concern.

    Our commitment to controlling rising prices is well known. Ten years ago, we inherited a broken backed economy with endemic inflation that pushed the annual rate to over 20 per cent in 1980. We brought that rate down to an average of 5 per cent a year over the last 5 years. The measures we took to achieve that were often controversial and unpopular at the time. But their success was reflected in the remarkable election mandate we received in both 1983 and 1987. The fact is that the British people do not like inflation and they will support measures to bring it down.

    In the last few months demand pressures have caused prices to turn up again in this country, as they are doing elsewhere. At their present peak of 7.5 per cent they are almost one-half the average rate under Labour and that is not tolerable for a Conservative Government. They will rise a little further before turning decisively down.

    That rise from 5 per cent is disturbing but the first thing to recognise is that the present situation is not remotely comparable to that of the 1970s and early 1980s. And we are determined it will not become so.

    Let us all be clear about one thing. We shall take no risks with inflation because it is vital to reduce it. Some people may regard a cosy level of inflation as bearable. But it isn’t. Inflation is nothing less than an economic evil. It can rapidly destroy savings. It can end the carefully accumulated security of a lifetime of sacrifice and prudent budgeting. It is the unfairest and most arbitrary tax of all. It bears down most harshly on those with least. It damages business confidence. Costs jobs. Promotes disorder in the wage market. And it is the raw material of militancy. Those are some of the reasons why we cannot tolerate it.

    For we know that inflation is not an abstract problem. It must be solved and there is no pain free way to do it. But there is a way that will work. And that is to raise interest rates to bear down on inflation.

    They have worked before, and they will work again. In fact, I believe you can see from the signs emerging in the high street, and in house sales, that they are doing so already. What is more they are well targeted at the problem.

    I know that higher interest rates, which mean higher mortgage repayments, are not popular. It would be surprising if they were. And I understand only too well the hardship they cause. They are uncomfortable for many people. But to them and to others I must say – in recent years we have all been through too much to bring inflation down to risk letting it rise again. That would not just be uncomfortable. That would be unthinkable.

    But what do the Opposition offer as an alternative? They have no policy, so all they can offer is abuse. Messrs Smith and Brown, the Don Quixote and Sancho Panza of economic policy-making, desperate to find windmills to tilt at, even more desperate to keep up the noise level to disguise the lamentable lack of content. They deplore inflation, but they attack the tight monetary policy that will cure it. They propose credit controls, and then admit that they don’t work. They say demand is too high, and then suggest increasing it with higher public spending. But we should give them some marks for consistency. They are still the party of high inflation. Still the party of high taxation. And still the party of uncontrolled public expenditure.

    Debt Repayment

    When I said earlier that the present position was not remotely comparable with earlier problems I did not only mean that we have taken action early enough to contain and reduce inflation before it caused too much damage. I also meant that today Britain has the strongest fiscal position of any major nation in the world.

    I do not simply assert that. I can prove it. For generations successive Governments borrowed more than they should and spent more than they had. None racked up debt more recklessly than the last Labour Government that borrowed the equivalent of £158 billion between 1974 and 1979. Indeed, if we borrowed as much as the Labour Government did in a single year we could live off those borrowings and abolish income tax entirely.

    Over the centuries public sector debt has built up inexorably. As a result this year we will pay £18 billion in interest payments alone on that debt. That is the equivalent of around 10p on the basic rate of income tax. That money has gone for today’s taxpayer. They pay it but they see nothing for it. It is not there to build road or railways, improve the NHS or education or defence. It simply pays the interest on past debts incurred by past Governments. Consider that: 10p in the £ on income tax simply to pay interest on past debts.

    Outside times of national emergency, I do not believe that Governments should continually spend more than they are prepared to raise honestly in taxation. It is unwise economically – and, I think, wrong socially – to spend too much today and leave the next generation to pay the bills. Living today and paying tomorrow is not an attractive philosophy for Government and nor is it a Conservative philosophy. We are determined we will not do that. We will maintain a balanced budget.

    At the moment we are doing more than that. We are repaying debt in large sums. By the end of March next year we will have repaid a total of £31.5 billion which will reduce the outstanding stock of debt built up over more than 200 years by around one-sixth. It means a saving on debt interest of around £3 billion a year – each year and every year. £15 billion saved in the space of a Parliament. And those £3 billions we don’t pay in interest on debt will be available for roads or schools or hospitals or to cut taxes or to further reduce debt. That is how it is possible for us both to cut tax rates and increase expenditure on the services we care about. And that prudence is the right policy. It is right for us – it is right for the taxpayer – and it is right for the next generation who deserve better than to be saddled with past debts.

    Balance of Payments

    I know that some people are concerned about the trade figures but I do not believe we should be too distracted by them. It is quite wrong to compare the present deficit with those that caused such problems in the 1960s and 1970s because there are key differences between them.

    Today’s balance of payments deficit is entirely the result of spending by individuals and the private sector. It is not – as it sometimes has been in the past – the result of reckless public spending by the Government. It is decisions of the private sector – both individuals and companies – that have caused the deficit and in time they will reduce it. Because unlike spendthrift Governments, private companies and individuals do not have a near unlimited ability to borrow in order to overspend. They cannot mortgage future generations.

    But there is a second crucial reason why the balance of payments is less of a worry today. While some of the imports represent spending on consumer goods, a much larger proportion represents investment by companies in intermediate and capital goods, to enable them to prepare for future expansion of output. It is not fanciful to say that today’s trade gap reflects in large part the confidence of industry to invest in new equipment, to provide for future growth, future exports, future jobs. Over the past six months for example, consumer goods accounted for only a quarter of total manufactured imports. And over the past 12 months the volume of imports of investment goods grew by 40 per cent more than consumer goods. These imports will add to the productive capacity, efficiency and growth of manufacturing industry. It is the unprecedented investment boom that is fuelling import growth and not a consumer binge.

    The balance of payments deficit will come down. I can assure you of that. Panic reactions are not necessary. It will take time, but it will happen. And the greater productive capacity of industry will play a part. British industry will export more, and will replace imports with home-made goods, if, and only if, the right goods are produced at a price people can afford. That is industry’s task, and I am confident that our businesses are now healthy enough, and well-managed enough, to achieve it.

    The Budget

    Some of you may recall that we had a Budget on Tuesday. I keep reading that it was a boring Budget. All I can say is that I remember lots of very exciting Budgets from Denis Healey, when taxes went up, inflation was stoked up, and incentives to work, save, and invest were squashed. It all made great headlines. It also made a terrible mess of the economy. There is an old Chinese curse – may you live in interesting times. I think we can all do without interesting times like those in the 1970s. The reality is that there were plenty of good, solid, prudent reforms in the Budget. Nigel Lawson has simplified and reformed our tax system more comprehensively than any Chancellor this century. In his previous Budgets he has reformed income tax and corporation tax. Reduced the rates of tax and the number of taxes. In this Budget he continued the themes of reform and wider share ownership and still made most people better off. He also produced a number of measures to eliminate unfairness in parts of the tax system.

    The centrepiece of the Budget was the reform of National Insurance contributions. These reforms will mean that most employees are better off by about £3 per week, and that is of proportionately greater value to those on lower incomes. As a result, the real take-home pay of the person on average earnings will have increased by 36% since we came to office. That is an extra £52 per week. The person on half average earnings – that is around £7,000 a year – has seen his take-home pay rise by over 31%, or £25 per week. And remember that is after taking account of inflation. Under Labour, for many people real take-home pay did not increase at all.

    The Chancellor has also introduced a number of measures which will be of great help to those who are retired. In particular he has abolished for good the unpopular Earnings Rule which was such a deterrent to many pensioners who wished to carry on with some form of full time or part time work. We simply should not assume that pensioners automatically wish to retire at the State retirement age. Many have a great deal to contribute and wish to go on doing so and we have now removed the rule that penalised those who did. We promised it would go. And it has gone and I believe we can wave it goodbye without any regret at all.

    The Chancellor has also increased the Age Allowances so that the elderly can keep more of what they earn – whether through continued work involvement, or from the investments made from earlier savings. And he has reduced the rate of withdrawal of the allowance at higher retirement incomes. Finally, he has extended the Higher Age Allowance, previously only available to those over 80, to those over 75.

    This last change is consistent with the social security change we announced recently that provides an extra pension supplement of between £2.50 and £3.50 a week for poorer pensioners that comes into effect in October.

    But, above all for pensioners, we must keep down the rate of inflation. I have never forgotten what Labour’s rampant inflation averaging 15 per cent did for pensioners’ savings. Within a few short years the prudent savings of years of careful budgeting were rendered valueless because the Labour Government lost control of the economy and the currency. For them, it meant electoral defeat. But for the pensioners it meant the destruction of their retirement security. We must ensure that never happens again.

    Peroration

    Mr Chairman, we are now only a few days away from the 10th anniversary of the decisive vote in the House of Commons that brought down the last Labour Government.

    That Government subjected the British people to rising taxes and ever rising inflation.

    It all but killed off enterprise with regulations and restrictions, hitting hardest those who strived to succeed.

    And the country it left behind was demoralised. We laughed at ourselves at home and were laughed at by others abroad.

    We have broken with that. It has gone. For five years out of the last six the British economy grew faster than any other economy in Europe. Faster than France. Faster than the miracle economy of West Germany.

    Production is at an all-time high. So are exports. So is manufacturing output. Investment is growing twice as fast as consumption. Business is profitable again and 9 million of our fellow citizens are now share-holders in it.

    More people are in work than ever before, unemployment has fallen by more than a million over the past two years and living standards are at record levels.

    The last decade will, I believe, eventually be seen as a time when Britain finally turned the corner, when we stopped envying others and started out-performing them.

    Our job isn’t finished yet. There is more work to do: not just to bring inflation down but to kill it off; not just to protect the enterprise culture but to spread it, not just to do better than our competitors for a year or two, but every year.

    We have had too many years of success to be pushed off course by temporary difficulties. In the past this Government has shown time and time again that it has the determination to pursue the necessary policies through temporarily squalls. I can assure this Conference that we will do exactly the same again. We have come too far to throw it all away. With your support in explaining our policies, we can all again enjoy the benefits of continuous strong growth with low inflation. The British people deserve nothing less, and that is what we shall deliver.